


Monument of a Memory

by CinnamonCake, last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Series: bring your heart, i'll bring my soul [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Afghanistan, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Deaf Character, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends to Lovers, Humanitarian Efforts, James Bond cameo, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Past Brainwashing, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rachel Maddow cameo, Rebuilding, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Torture, Trauma Recovery, Women Being Awesome, canon blind character, deprogramming, disabled superheroes, thor is not an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-02-08 12:14:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 148,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12864315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonCake/pseuds/CinnamonCake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: Sometimes the truth is like a second chance.The ashes of the Triskelion have barely cooled when Steve arrives unbidden at Stark Tower. He doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for, so it’s a good thingsomeoneseems to; Sharon thinks she should be getting hazard pay (she should); Phil is beginning to understand why Fury was perfectly happy to stay publicly dead; Natasha and Sam in no way signed up to be relationship counsellors and want their money back; Bucky is waiting for the other shoe to drop like an anvil on his head; and bureaucracy is as impossibly, torturously stupid as it always is. Honestly, the fine print in superhero contracts needs a lot of revision.Or: the one in which we accidentally wrote half of (and preemptively fixed)Captain America: Civil Warbefore D23, except gayer.Note: For anyone who prefers waiting for WIPs to finish before reading, all substantive plot has concluded with chapter 5! 6 is essentially a (long) epilogue of pure fluff to recover from the previous 150,000 words; no major plot developments occur.





	1. Prologue: Wake Me Up, Stop My Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Please bear with us for a minute and one ridiculously long note! Spoilers for…basically everything; canon is, for the most part, strictly MCU with a few alterations. Please check [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12864423/chapters/29382510) for clarification on canon sources; and [this addendum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12864423/chapters/29382219) for an index of acronyms and definitions.
> 
> Surgeon General’s Warning: this is basically 150K words of All the Feels Ever™, with some intermittent sex to distract you (and them). There’s a happy ending and even some fluff in the middle of it, but there’s a whole lot of communication failure and pining and poor coping mechanisms and general angst. If you’re looking for homicide by Feels, congratulations, you found it.
> 
>  **Trigger warnings** : portrayals of panic attacks, PTSD and C-PTSD, and general psychological instability; suicidal ideation; withholding medical care as a method of control and/or torture; mistreatment of children (e.g. Red Room—there are no instances of current child abuse); callous, but not graphic, violence; aftermath of a mass casualty incident (Sokovia repair efforts, post- _Age of Ultron_ ); discussion and implementation of brainwashing, and the recovery process; mentions of Nazis and/or Nazi Germany, in reference to the events of Winter Soldier or _Captain America: The First Avenger_. There’s also a _lot_ of self-recrimination and guilt for things out of an individual’s control, so if that’s a hot button for you, tread carefully. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us for clarification or greater detail. 
> 
> Please note that, due to the nature of this story and the background of these characters, PTSD has a fairly consistent presence throughout, though the degree to which it is discussed varies. We will do our best to warn for potential, specific triggers prior to each section as relevant, but consider PTSD and C-PTSD a blanket warning for the story at large.
> 
> CinnamonCake’s AN: All the praise goes to my wonderful co-author who is not only lovely, but also a genius who would take the thousands and thousands of words I spewed all over her and turned them into gold <3
> 
> Last_illusions’ AN: I once offhandedly suggested a one-shot; it is all my co-author’s fault that this became a novel, and without her enthusiasm and the genius workings of her brain, this would still be an idea floating around in my head, never to see the light of day. She is brilliant, and if you enjoy what you read, the credit goes to her.

**i. when your angels fall out of the sky**

World War II made a scrawny kid from Brooklyn named Steve Rogers into Captain America; Azzano, Italy in November 1943 made Captain America into the American hero.  But fate has a cruel sense of humor, and so, exactly sixteen months to the day after his heroic rescue of the 107th, Steve watched James Barnes fall from a train in the mountains of Italy in a flurry of ice and snow.

When he saved his best friend’s life, he received a medal; but when his best friend tried to save _his_ life, he received a death sentence.

A day later in the Bavarian Alps, Captain America’s mission to stop Red Skull became a suicide run, and he downed the _Valkyrie_ in icy waters off the coast of Greenland in the name of patriotism and duty.  In so doing, he lost a woman he could easily have loved.  He lost the home for which he’d broken laws to defend.  He, quite literally, lost everything.  It seemed like some sort of karmic retribution.

\----------

 _24 April 2012_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Against all odds, he wakes.  After lying down and letting the cold seep into his body, through to his bones, until he couldn’t muster the energy to keep his eyes open, to think, to _breathe_ , he wakes.  It’s unexpected.  It’s anticlimactic.  It’s almost disappointing.  It’s everything _but_ what he’d intended.

He opens his eyes to soldiers in full tactical gear, down to heavy black helmets and the futuristic weapons he won’t register until he’s had time to think anything more substantial than, “Shit, we lost.”  Unarmed, barefoot, disoriented, and ridiculously outnumbered, he runs: if he’s awake, surely there’s help to be found.  Later, he’ll think it strange that he broke straight through a wall as cleanly as he did without so much as a by your leave.  In that moment, his rather curtailed attention span is devoted to getting away from Hydra to regroup.

Then he plunges into daylight and a Times Square that is at once eerily familiar and frighteningly strange.  It looks chiefly the way he remembers—if the city he remembered had been transplanted into one of the science fiction novels he’d loved growing up.  There are cars _everywhere_ , none of which look much like cars at all; and where printed billboards once hung, lights and moving pictures stand instead.

They ask if he lost something.

He says the first thing that comes to mind: “I had a date.”

He wonders then where Peggy Carter is; he doesn’t have the chance to ask.  He’s thrown from briefing to briefing, subject to one test after another.  It feels like Erskine’s lab on methamphetamine and steroids, all frenetic energy and shiny, complicated equipment he doesn’t understand, with him on display to the audience in the viewing gallery.

The calendars say it’s the twenty-first century.  That’s hard enough to digest on its own, seventy years gone with the world acquiring development after development, each sleeker and louder than the last.  Worse, his brain can’t seem to reconcile the time difference.  Every time he closes his eyes, he hears the clattering roar of the train over the tracks, sees the look of stunned belief on Bucky’s face as he falls, hears that last, pained scream that comes while his hand is still outstretched toward Steve.  The rest of the world may have moved on, but for him, it was still only yesterday.

\----------

 _4 May 2012_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

He hasn’t been awake long enough to catch his breath before there are gods and demigods and aliens tumbling from the sky in a discombobulated stage performance onto a whole new field of war.  If he’d woken up to a world born of science fiction and imagination, there _are_ no words to define whatever this is.  He thinks to himself that aliens trying to kill you sounds a lot cooler on paper than the experience feels in real life.  His only consolation is that everyone else seems just as dumbstruck as he feels.

“What, you getting sleepy?” he tosses over his shoulder, back-to-back with an immortal warrior straight out of Norse mythology.  Then he freezes, because that’s not Bucky, but for just a second he’d been fooled by habit into believing his friend was there.

It hurts, sharp and brutal like unsharpened blades clawing at his heart.  Then there’s another explosion and four more aliens and a giant gaping hole still in the sky, so he doesn’t have time to ponder that overmuch.

Tony Stark is like salt in an open wound, and one he doesn’t know how to cleanse.  He should be the one connection to Steve’s past, the son and heir of his friend.  Except a seventy-year nap didn’t make Steve any more inclined to like bullies, and according to every briefing he’s received and every interview he’s watched and every word they’ve exchanged, that is exactly what Tony Stark is.  He might not hang people off buildings, or so much as steal anyone’s lunch money, but he’s brash and arrogant and manipulative, getting his way because of nothing more than the numbers in his bank accounts.  It’s grating, when Steve grew up forgoing medication and even meals because he couldn’t afford them, while this man has never wanted for anything in his life and doesn’t have any idea what it’s like on the other side of the coin.  It’s a dishonor to the memory of Howard Stark.  Steve refuses to admit that perhaps the reason it stings like so much betrayal is that he’d been hoping for one tenuous lifeline in this miasma of chaos into which he’d been thrown.

\----------

 _14 October 2014_ ; _Washington, DC_

Two years into this new life and there’s the nascent sense that he is, just maybe, beginning to find his footing again.  He’s grieved, he’s mourned his losses, and he’s learned to move on and begin the process of navigating this place that changed so much in seven decades—and yet, simultaneously, hasn’t changed at all.  He finds it strange, the way everyone he encounters automatically believes he must be nostalgic for the past.  He misses his _life_ , he misses having people he knew well enough to crash on their sofas uninvited, but as he tells Sam Wilson, it’s not really the 1940s that he misses.  “Internet, so helpful,” he says, passing it off as a joke, and “we used to boil everything”, but there’s more truth in his flip dismissal than anyone guesses.  Try though he might to avoid that road, he also can’t help but think the medical advances they have so easily at their disposal today could have made his life so very different.

Fury had asked him if he’d consider serving as a SHIELD agent in any capacity when the Avengers weren’t on call.  The team is barely deserving of the label, and his skillsets are admittedly limited, so he agrees, if only to make himself feel marginally less useless.  When he isn’t on assignment, though, he tracks down the few surviving members of the 107th, meets the families of others.  They all know him, or know _of_ him, and there is a yawning abyss of bitterness beneath that.  He goes to Arlington National Cemetery and leaves a bottle of Jack at Bucky’s headstone, because Bucky would laugh his ass off if Steve so much as thought about leaving flowers.  He visits Peggy; he leaves so much more emotionally confused than he had been when he walked in the door.  He’s glad she’d had a chance to live her life, and he’s indescribably proud of the things she accomplished and the glass ceilings she broke.  She’d left her mark on the world the way he always knew she would, fierce and unapologetic; it’s that fire that had drawn him to her in the first place.  But her eyes are sharp as ever, and there’s still that spark, that electric, sweet suggestion between them.  He’ll never not wonder what that could have been.

Then he finds himself hopelessly ensnared in a collision of giants—is this what David felt, up against Goliath?—immured in a political conspiracy within his nation’s capital.  SHIELD falls to dust and rubble at his feet as he is branded traitor and Hydra raises its heads again, as if to render all their efforts in the 40s null and void.  Adding insult to injury, he finds his supposedly dead best friend is in fact alive, because of course this couldn’t have happened _before_ he’d finally come to terms, sort of, with Bucky’s death.  Or maybe it’s a moot point, given that he doesn’t know Steve from a hole in the ground—“You are my mission!” he shouts over Steve’s protests—as he tries to kill him.  Three times.

When at last Steve comes to on the banks of the Potomac, still soaking wet and sore as though the Hulk has been using him for a punching bag, he doesn’t know how he got there.  But he hopes.  He hopes that the minuscule spark of bemused recognition he saw in a Russian operative’s eyes is a prelude to something deeper.  He hopes that it was enough to make Steve worth saving.  He hopes Bucky, because he refuses to stop believing that his friend is still there behind the brainwashing and the programming, knows Steve never would have left him in those mountains if he’d known he survived the fall.

\----------

 _17 October 2014_ ; _Washington, DC_

He stands amidst the detritus of his DC apartment, a conglomeration of bullet holes and crumbling plaster and a violently aborted attempt at building another life.  All he’s acquired is a new set of memories and the resigned acknowledgement that certain things will never leave you.  It seems fate and the universe are and forever will be colluding against him, and no amount of wisdom can teach him how to break free of the centripetal force holding him in this endless saga.  Briefly, he considers staying, considers trying to fix what had been broken.  He’s no longer persona non grata in the intelligence community—the entire agency is, but that’s a different, discrete problem—and it’s not as though he couldn’t find work if he wanted to.

But some things, he’s learned, can’t be fixed, and he thinks this is one of them.  Everything he owns that’s still intact and of any sentimental value fits into a backpack and a small duffel bag that he drops on the back of his bike, and as he’s strapping it down, he hears someone clear their throat behind him.  He turns, but the reflexive “can I help you?” turns to ash on his tongue when he sees his neighbor standing there.  He realizes he doesn’t even know her name.

She meets his gaze steadily, blue eyes level and so very familiar.  “I hope you know it was a contingency plan, Captain, one we hoped we’d never need,” she says, and he doesn’t have to ask what “it” is.  That she doesn’t apologize for doing her job makes him like her a little more.

So he holds out his hand.  “Steve,” he replies.  “You were willing to take one of STRIKE’s bullets.  Call it even.”

The tiniest of smiles appears in the lines around her eyes, and she returns his grip firmly.  “Sharon Carter,” she says with a nod, and he does a double-take as he lets go of her hand.  This time the smile reaches the rest of her face, however slight.  “She’s my aunt.”

“I promise only half of what she told you is true,” he says after a pregnant, awkward pause, and she laughs softly.  There are a thousand questions he wants to ask, but he is less certain if he wants the answers, at least not now.

“If anything, I think she didn’t say enough.”  She nods at the bike, adds, “Hotel, or fleeing the city?”

“Neither, really,” he answers wryly.  “Heading out to check on a friend, see if I can be of use elsewhere.”

“I won’t keep you, then,” she says.  “Maybe one of these days when the world isn’t ending you can tell me what Aunt Peggy was like in the war.”

This time, he laughs, genuine and surprised.  “Deal,” he agrees.

\----------

 _18 October 2014_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Eight hours later as he’s coming into Manhattan proper, he begins to rethink his own sanity—he and Tony had parted amiably enough after the Chitauri invasion, but he doubts they’re on drop-in-unannounced terms.  It’s nevertheless something of a relief to find Stark Tower standing: the list of people he knows who are actually _alive_ is depressingly short, and having one of those few show up on Pierce’s kill list had struck harder than he could have anticipated.

He sits there, parked in front of the building amidst evening traffic, for long minutes until it finally occurs to him that the stranger with a backpack on a bike staring at a building might not be the best image to project right now.  As if on cue, the front doors open, and Tony himself starts making his way down the sidewalk.

Steve promises himself he won’t flinch, steels himself against Stark’s teasing, or his usual brand of caustic humor— _something_.  Instead, he gets an easy, “Hey, you’re alive” as Tony claps him on the shoulder like Steve’s merely a little late to dinner.  His bike moves to occupy one of the spaces in Tony’s garage, he’s shown to a residential floor—“yours for as long as you want it,” Tony says with a shrug—and Steve’s head is spinning.  Tony Stark may have done a kamikaze run into space with a nuke on his back, but this is something different entirely.

Bruce Banner is apparently back in Kolkata, setting up actual clinics in place of the unofficial house calls he’d been making before Natasha Romanova hauled him onto the Helicarrier, so it’s only the two of them in the otherwise empty Tower.  After taking a few hours to settle in, get a shower, breathe a little bit, Steve ventures out of his quarters only to literally run into Tony as he emerges from his sub-basement workshop thirty seconds later.  (Steve had been trying to find the front door.  Obviously, he failed.)  But Tony invites him in, and for lack of anything better to do, he follows.  Most of the equipment and technology have changed, but the tenor of the room is still reminiscent of Howard’s workspaces.  While he knows enough now not to conflate father with son, the atmosphere settles comfortably around him.

He doesn’t expect to start filling in the blanks over cartons of Chinese takeaway, to confirm the footnotes in the Winter Soldier’s file as truth instead of speculation, to tell him about James Barnes the kid from Brooklyn and not the KGB assassin.

He doesn’t expect the sympathy in Tony’s eyes as he listens.  He doesn’t expect him to offer to help.  And he definitely doesn’t expect to accept it.

But he does.

It’s a start.

 

**ii. tame the ghosts in my head (that run wild and wish me dead)**

_14 October 2014_ ; _Washington, DC — Fairfax, Virginia_

The memories come in fragments, sharp like sleet against your skin in a storm.

This photo is not him.  The thought is impossible, irrefutable.  He is the Asset; he is the Winter Soldier.  He has no other name; he isn’t allowed any other name; they beat you for claiming identity.

This photo says this person who wears his old name and his old face is dead.  He supposes they’re not wrong; James Buchanan Barnes died in the mountains of Italy, and—

_Cold._

_Pain._

_Snow stained crimson._

_Russian orders he does not understand._

_Blurry shadows above him._

_Steel and—_

Nyet.  He closes his eyes, breathes in.  You do not think.  If you do not think, they do not strap you down.

Across the exhibit, the man whose life he’d just saved stares back at him from another glossy, larger-than-life display.  There’s a pounding at his temples, which is inexplicable: he hasn’t been hit in the head today.

 _I know him_.

 _Red brick.  Wet pavement_.

 _Blond hair_.   _Blue eyes_.

 _Kindness_.   _Protectiveness_.   _Honor_.

 _A friend he would follow to the_ —

Nyet.  Those are not his orders.  This man is a target.  He has a kill order.  He has already ignored the directive once, and his handlers will not forgive that.

At the opposite side of the gallery, a child stares inquisitively at him.  When he meets her gaze, her eyes are the same cornflower blue as—

Nyet.  Eye contact is only useful in a fight.  The only way to stay alive is to keep your head down, show respect, show submission.

He leaves quickly, quietly, avoiding the cameras; he is invisible.  Outside, there is a chill in the air.  He barely notices, but it’s enough to render his gloves inconspicuous as he weaves through the city’s side streets, checking for tails as he does.  There’s a map in his head, targets labeled: the White House; the Triskelion; the J Edgar Hoover Building; the Washington Monument.  He avoids all of them, succeeding only because he does not try to justify it.

Hours later, it’s nightfall, and he finds himself somewhere in Fairfax, Virginia.  The lights of a diner are bright up ahead, and he approaches it like he would any other target, marking exits and entrances (four, plus three unobstructed windows and an unreinforced wall); the number of cars in the lot (fifteen); the number of patrons in the room (twenty-six); any potential weapons (six moveable tables, twenty-four chairs, forty sets of utensils, seven handbags, five briefcases, three newspapers, a magazine, two pens, a cane, one man and one woman with handguns concealed beneath their shirts).  When he walks in, a woman (middle-aged—late forties—5’7”; 170 pounds; light brown hair barely threaded with grey; green eyes; medium brown skin; jeans; leather loafers; green button-down; white apron; no jewelry) smiles at him from behind the counter.

“Grab any open table, hon, I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

He freezes: there must be a trick, she must have been sent by his handlers.  Choice is their stick; they do not believe in carrots.  They dole out choices so they can punish those who take them.  But seventy years of training have left him with reliable field instincts, and no one in that diner has paid him more than a cursory glance for letting the cold air in when he opened the door.

 _Cold air_.

 _Ragged breathing—not his_.

 _Drizzling honey into a mug of tea_.

 _Bringing it to_ —

Nyet.  Memories are false.  Memories are what they gave him.  Memories do not matter, unless they further the mission.

He feigns comfort, tracking the path through the diner that requires him to pass the fewest number of people.  He takes a table at the back, against a solid wall, no windows around him, a full view of the doors and the room.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the kitchen door swing open.  The woman who had greeted him at the entryway comes toward him.

“Hi,” she says with that same easy smile, sliding a menu onto the table in front of him.  Her name tag reads “Winifred”.  It is familiar.  He does not know why.  “Can I get you anything to drink while you look over the menu?”

Again, he freezes.  In his directorate—the one the SVR does not admit exists—they hang free will like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of their specialized operatives (like him).  

In that pause, the waitress looks a little more closely at him.  “Hey, are you alright?”

“I—”

There is no “I”.  Ever.  “I” is an identity.  Identities are luxuries.  They do not have luxuries.

“I’m going to get you a cup of tea, okay?” Winifred tells him.  Her voice is measured and even, but she does not try to touch him.  So he just nods.

He turns his attention to the menu, tries to focus on the words.  English is as clear as it ever has been, but he cannot process this list.  Seventy years of having choice torn forcibly from his hands, his body, his mind, have left him unable to remember _how_.  On operations, in setting up targets, he makes tactical decisions.  None of them are personal.

Tea in hand, Winifred reappears at his side, sets the mug on the table.  “This should help,” she says.  It reminds him of something, of a woman, of comfort.  He pushes the thought away.  “Now, what can I get you?”

She stands there as though she has all the time in the world, and he looks from the menu to her and back.  “I don’t know,” he says at last, and she chuckles.

“Yeah, I’ve had those days,” she replies, commiseration without pity or judgement.  He does not understand: she is not one of their operatives, she is not a sleeper agent.  “How about I just bring something from the kitchen?” she offers; again, he nods.  “You allergic to anything?”  He shakes his head.  “I’ll surprise you, then.”  She gives him that smile again.  He tries to smile back; he doesn’t know if he succeeds.

“Mom!!”

Bucky swings his gaze sharply across the room, sees a girl (eight or nine; grey eyes; blonde hair; dark red knit dress; sheepskin-lined black boots) standing over another child (male; same age; green eyes; brown hair; black sweater; jeans; blue sneakers) by a table.  A woman (thirties; 5’4”; 154 pounds; grey eyes; dark blonde hair; jeans; black leather boots; green pullover) stands, pushing back one of the chairs, pulling a small, white plastic tube from her pocket.  She kneels beside the boy, and even with his enhanced hearing Bucky cannot decipher what she says.  But she puts the tube to the boy’s mouth, presses at the top of it, and Bucky can see the rise and fall of his chest.

He remembers this.

He remembers this, with the man he’d been sent to kill.

\----------

 _28 April 2014_ ; _Нижний Новгород (Nizhny Novgorod), Russia_

“Mr Pierce, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” he hears a voice say from the other side of the door.  The room itself is sparse, holding only a table bolted to the bare cement floor and two chairs.  The Winter Soldier stands with his back to the wall, hands behind his back, staring straight ahead.  When the door opens, he doesn’t move.

“You requested our best,” a man says, holding the door with one hand and gesturing inside the room with the other.  He’s tall, swarthy, with a voice like gravel and sand; the Soldier has never seen him before.  “This is our best.  The longest list of confirmed kills and successful operations.”

The second man steps further into the room; he’s maybe an inch shorter than his companion, trim rather than thin, with sharp blue eyes and hair the color of desert sand.  Those eyes run up and down the Soldier’s body, like he’s a car in a showroom and this man is a potential buyer.  He turns to a folder in his hand, leafing through the papers and looking back and forth between them and the Soldier himself.

“I’d like to see him in action.”

“Of course.”

They keep practice targets in their facilities—newcomers, those with no family, prostitutes, drug addicts, some criminals (if they’re going to be executed, they may as well be put to good use first)—low-risk individuals who will not be missed, or whose disappearances can be easily explained.  The handlers use them to train their operatives, or, in cases like this, as a demonstration; having real targets who react with human instincts keeps the operatives sharp.

It is always a fight to the death.

The Winter Soldier has never lost.

\----------

 _25 May 2014_ ; تاجورة _(Tadjoura), Djibouti_

At the outskirts of the city, in a makeshift staging site a few hours from Tadjoura Airport, the Soldier is escorted into one of the heavy ripstop canvas tents at the centre of the encampment (though calling it that is perhaps overly generous).

The man—Pierce, he remembers—who had bought his contract the previous month is seated at an expansive cherry wood conference table.  It looks far more suited to a high-priced law firm, or maybe the dining room of a 1940s London estate, than a tent in the desert.  When they enter, Pierce looks up, dismissing the guards with a wave of his hand.  From the corner of his eye, the Soldier sees the wary looks they shoot one another, but they leave all the same.

Pointing to a chair, Pierce nods at him.  “Have a seat,” he says, and the Soldier does as told.  “It’s done then?”

“Yes,” the Soldier replies.

They had been tracking a Russian expat who’d gotten himself involved in a human trafficking ring.  Former KGB, it was as much an embarrassment to the country as the agency—less his involvement and more that he’d been stupid enough to get caught—and the directorate wanted him gone.  The method of execution they chose was the Winter Soldier.

“Excellent,” Pierce says.

He doesn’t ask for details (they almost never do), but he reaches over and pours a glass of scotch, which he slides across the table.  No one has ever made the mistake of so blatantly handing the Soldier a potential weapon—not since he’d broken a crystal goblet and torn open his first handler’s carotid with one of the remaining shards.

The Soldier peers at him for a moment, something tantalizingly familiar edging into his memories.  “Are you breathing okay?” he asks.  He rarely initiates conversation (none of them do, predominantly because, as operatives, they are taught not to), but this one is different.  He can’t pinpoint why, but he knows it as fact as well as he knows his mission.

There’s a pause, and then Pierce smiles, a sharp, confused twist of his mouth.  “Why do you ask?”

“It’s spring,” he answers simply, almost by rote, like he’s living a flashback.  “You always hated spring.  It’s bad for you.”

It’s ninety degrees and sunny outside, and distantly in the back of his mind even he knows the assertion is nonsensical.  But Pierce just nods, slowly.  Then he presses a button on the phone-like console atop the table.  “Send the team in.”

Officially, the Soldier isn’t due for another wipe for at least a month.  They take him anyway.

When he’s stopped screaming, when the pain has subsided into a dull ache, he no longer recalls any significance to the seasons.

\----------

 _4 June 2014_ ; طيعوا _(Tio_ ), _Eritrea_

“It’s inexplicable,” someone says in Russian, just loudly enough to be heard from the adjoining room with the door closed.

“It’s _eerie_ ,” a woman replies in kind, and the Soldier pays them the kind of cursory attention one grants to the passersby in targeted surveillance: sufficient to catch anything critical, but otherwise disinterested.  “None of the handlers has _ever_ gone this long.”

A third voice joins the conversation: “I don’t follow.”  Idly, the Soldier vaguely acknowledges that they have no idea he’s in the next room.  Most of his focus remains on the blueprints in front of him.

“The Winter Soldier is the hardest asset to run.”  The woman again.  “He’s been put in cryo more than any of the others, and the memory wipes wear off faster on him.”

The first voice adds, “He’s killed more of his handlers than the top five assets combined, but this new guy, the American?  It’s like he’s stopped fighting.”

“Why?”

“No one has any idea, including the American,” the woman says.

“If the directorate figures it out, though, they’ll kill for the trigger or the cure or whatever the leash is.”

Then the door to the main hall opens, and Pierce fills the doorway.  “It’s time.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Soldier is slipping silently into the Eritrean ambassador’s home.  He delivers three killing blows, silent and fast, knives opening throats in macabre grins before the targets can scream.  He’s back out in under four minutes.

They don’t find the bodies for another two days.

\----------

 _14 October 2014_ ; _Fairfax, Virginia_

“Here you go, hon,” Winifred says by way of greeting as she approaches, sliding a couple of plates onto the table and pulling Bucky out of the unceasing quagmire that is the inside of his own head.  “Brought you a few options—what my mother would call soul food.”  She smiles at him.

Again, he tries to smile back, the expression tense and uncertain and foreign on his face, a pattern his muscles have long since forgotten with disuse.  He does not know if he should thank her, but his wary nod seems to satisfy her, because she steps away, pausing only to add, “Let me know if you need anything else.”  It is sincere, and it is kind; he’s waiting for the trap to snap shut, to break bones and draw blood, for the snare to catch and tear him off his feet.  It never comes, and while that should probably be a comfort, it only adds to the anxiety churning low and tumultuous in his belly.

But he has been taught to eat when he can, just as he has been taught that to refuse his handlers’ orders serves only to ask for a beating.  So he swallows against the burgeoning nausea and focusses on the food; no one has blown their way through a wall with a Kalashnikov aimed at his head, and he cannot remember the last time he ate.  It is as solid a window as he is likely to receive.

There’s a plate of meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and gravy still hot enough that steam is rising.  Something about it is inexplicably, almost painfully familiar, more weightless than goose down in the way it floats just beyond his grasp.  There’s a sandwich he does not recognize (he should, he thinks, because it was in his training to blend, to be invisible).  It, too, is still hot, the scent redolent of another memory that hovers at the periphery of his awareness, too far to be tangible but close enough to nag at him.  A large bowl of chili sits beside the sandwich, accompanied by a quesadilla—it seems Winifred had, in the face of his confusion, gone as broad as possible to cover all her bases.  He still doesn’t know if she’s going to reappear and shoot him in the face or break his fingers, but gratitude claws its way up his throat as though that will be sufficient impetus for him to find the words to express it.

It isn’t.

But he eats, tentatively at first, testing the waters for sharks out for blood in roughly equal measure with trying to determine what he _likes_ , beyond sustenance for sheer survival and the kind of field performance expected of him.  It turns out to be everything, and with each bite, the anxiety settles; it doesn’t dissipate, and he is still cautious, but he lets himself eat without the knife in his hand at all times.  (If it stays within centimeters of his fingers whenever he’s not actually using it as a utensil, that can be labeled practicality as easily as anything else.)  When Winifred heads back in his direction, he feels every muscle in his body go taut in spite of himself; but she does nothing except raise an eyebrow at the mostly cleared plates.

“Do they just not feed you, hon?” she asks, amusement sparking in her eyes, but she doesn’t seem to expect an answer.  Instead, she just asks, “Can I bring you anything else?” and he shakes his head, not wanting to overtax her hospitality or outlast this isolated fragment of peace.

“Thank you,” he manages to say aloud this time, and she just smiles, kind and open in a way his handlers never, ever were (are).  For that reason alone, he breathes easier; the distinction is minuscule, but for him it makes all the difference.

“My pleasure,” she replies, and slips the bill on the table.  “No rush,” she adds quickly.  “Whenever you’re ready.”

Habitually, he glances down at it, then double-takes, looking from the table to the bill and back again.  She chuckles softly.  “It’s correct,” she says.  “Some of it’s on me.”

He opens his mouth for the reflexive protest (you did not accept gifts; there were no such things as “gifts”, only bait), but she waves it off though she’s still careful not to touch him.  Later—much later—he’ll think of how much he owes her for this night, for her lack of questions, for her kindness, but in this moment he’s only left wondering if this is when the other shoe drops.

But all she says is, “You remind me a little of my son-in-law after he got out of the Marines,” as if that in itself is an explanation.

She gives him another warm smile and retreats quietly; this, too, will be something he remembers months down the line, marveling at her perspicacity for a perfect stranger.  Now, though, he blows out a slow breath, lets himself finish what little remains of the food before he pulls enough bills to cover the meal and a generous tip.  His handlers never send their operatives out with enough to accord them any true freedom, just enough to look like they belong, and for the first time in sixty years he doesn’t look at it solely as an element of operational calculus.

He slips out of the diner carefully, pulling his baseball cap lower on his forehead, and begins walking again.  It is still aimless, but at least for a few minutes he feels slightly less like he is running full-tilt from a rabid bear.

It’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geographical disclaimer: while it is technically possible to walk from DC to Fairfax, we do not recommend it. Please do not attempt it, unless you actually are a brainwashed American soldier from World War II, in which case we’d love to have a chat.
> 
> Prologue and section titles respectively are, in order, from Ellie Goulding’s “Every Time You Go”, Kelly Clarkson’s “Take You High”, and Mumford & Sons’ “Lover’s Eyes”.


	2. Part I: A Climbing Moon upon an Empty Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team tracks down a lot of dead ends, runs into a lot of walls, and suffers the effects of reality. In between, they hold a few holiday parties, have some unexpected reunions, and go poach some of their own back from other members of the US government alphabet soup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: guilt and self-blame; poor decision-making; rescue and recovery post-mass casualty incident, including the mention of a deceased child and the handling of corpses; explicit portrayal of a panic attack; physical assault; general government asshattery
> 
> Yes, this chapter is early! Mostly since the last one was the prologue, so we figured some actual content might be a nice addition. We're resuming the two-week schedule now, if only to save our sanity with the weird HTML conversion the system insists on doing incorrectly!

**i. lived through bad beginnings (seen unhappy ends)**

_6 November 2014_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Some three weeks into Steve’s unexpected residency at Stark Tower, his carefully constructed façade cracks for the first time, and really it’s a minor miracle that it took this long.  His sleep has been fitful at best since he woke up, but to that he’d grown accustomed.  Less so this obnoxious new penchant for waking in ten-minute intervals when he falls asleep at all, which is how he ends up on the communal-access floor at 0300h, absconding with a glass of Tony’s whisky and making a futile attempt to get drunk.

And that’s where he still is when Tony comes upon him, wandering through in search of…something, Steve doesn’t know what, and finding a super soldier raiding his liquor supply instead.

“I thought you couldn’t get drunk anymore,” he says from the kitchen.  Steve makes a valiant attempt to push himself upright on the sofa like the polite human being his mother had raised, but Tony waves him off before he’s really moved at all.  “Don’t get up on my account.  What are you doing down here, anyway?  I know I can’t read clocks, but usually you can.”

“I—” Steve starts to say, then stops; he’s not sure himself.  That seems to get Tony’s attention, and he turns to peer at Steve a little more closely.  Then he sets the folder he’d just picked up back down on the granite counter and walks over to drop onto the other end of the sofa.

“Let me guess—can’t sleep?” he asks.

He has that electrified porcupine look indicative of an ungodly number of consecutive hours in the workshop or the lab.  Steve wonders then at the speed of that guess, wonders how many sleepless nights have dictated the amount of time Tony spends working.  He’s a little ashamed to have never considered that until now.

“Yeah,” he says, about five minutes too late to be relevant, but Tony just nods.

He drapes his arm across the back of the sofa, head propped on his hand so he can actually see Steve.  “We’ll find him.”

“What are you, psychic?” Steve snaps, suddenly, unreasonably irascible; he regrets it almost immediately.

Tony just snorts.  “Call it empathy,” he says dryly before Steve can apologize.  “Different circumstances, but same concept.”

“Sorry.”  Steve drags a hand down his face as Tony lightly whacks his ankle.

“Don’t be—I’m about one line away from holding the patent in saying things I shouldn’t.”

Steve doesn’t know how you’re supposed to respond to a statement like that, so he doesn’t say anything.  In the end, it’s Tony who breaks the silence.

“After my parents died, I kept wondering if things would have been different if I’d been here,” he says, and Steve looks at him sharply.  “More likely I’d have died, too, but still—and I didn’t even _like_ my father.  I can’t imagine trying to make sense of that with someone you love.”

He doesn’t mention his mother, and Steve doesn’t ask, just says, “There’s no way you could have known.”

Tony tips his head to the side, holding Steve’s gaze with his own. “Then why is it you seem to expect yourself to have predicted your friend would survive a fall off a mountain?”

Steve opens his mouth, then shuts it again, at a loss for words to provide an answer that isn’t “because”.  So he takes a page out of Tony’s playbook and tops off his glass instead, only this time when he sits back down he makes a passable attempt at not sprawling across the length of the tan leather, mirroring Tony’s position instead.

“But he _did_ survive,” he says at last, “when he had less of the serum than I did, and he literally took the fucking fall for me and this is the price he paid.  If it had been me, maybe I’d have been fine, at least enough to get back to a US base, or if we’d both fallen I could have gotten him _back_ , before Russia got their hands on him.”

“And maybe you’d both have died,” Tony counters, voice so gentle that Steve thinks this, of all things, will be what breaks the increasingly tenuous hold he has on his self-control.  “Or maybe you’d both have ended up in the Winter Soldier program, and who’d be left to cut through the programming now?”

“I just feel so…useless,” he admits, a confession made easier beneath the shield of darkness instead of the harsh light of day.  “They tell me to infiltrate a secure compound, sure, that’s easy enough.  But this?  This isn’t my realm, and I feel like I’m searching for someone who doesn’t even exist anymore.”  He swallows half his glass in one go, feels the burn of the alcohol all the way down his esophagus.  “I close my eyes and I’m back on that mountain, or I’m on the plane again, and somehow I can never save him then, either.”

“I wasn’t alone in Afghanistan,” Tony offers after a beat, an assertion that should feel like a tangent but doesn’t.  “They had another physicist there before me, and we were supposed to get out together.  Instead he died five feet from the cave entrance, which is when I found out that had been his plan all along.”  He shrugs one shoulder, shakes his head.  “It was his choice; it was my fault.”

For a moment, Steve doesn’t respond.  That detail had evidently eluded the SHIELD files, but it explains…well, a lot.  “What’s the saying?” he asks finally.  “ ‘Life’s a bitch—”

“—and then you die,” Tony says with him, a bitter twist to his lips that could only generously be called a smile.

“I already did that last part.  Is it so much to ask that life eases up the second time around?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?" Tony agrees.

More of that file slots into place, like the explosion at the Malibu SI building, like the “robotic tech failure on the highway” right after he got home.  Steve thinks perhaps he should delete everything he’d gleaned from that file, start over, because the Tony Stark he’s met since he came back to NYC is _not_ the man delineated in those pages.  He wonders, if he hadn’t had that file, if it might have been _this_ Tony Stark he could have met aboard the Helicarrier, wonders if it would have changed the outcome of the day at all.  He wonders, if he hadn’t had that file, if it might have been he who reached out to Tony while DC burned, instead of Natasha and Maria relaying the updates as they came in.

The moment he’d accepted Tony’s offer of assistance that night he first arrived, Tony had nodded, then gone rummaging in a desk drawer before returning with an encrypted flash drive. That drive turned out to be every piece of intel on either Bucky or the Winter Soldier since 1942.  It hadn’t escaped Steve that some of that information overlapped with what the others had found.  While that makes sense, it also makes him wonder how much of the intel they had told him in the midst of fighting, of fleeing, had come from Tony.  He doesn’t have the nerve to ask.

He keeps expecting Tony to get up, to go back to whatever project had sent him in search of that file and brought him upstairs in the first place.  But he doesn’t, and somewhere amidst the rambling conversation and the oddly comfortable silences, Steve drifts off.

It seems he wasn’t the only one, because when he wakes it must be at least 10, and he’s stretched out against the cushions, using Tony’s shoulder as a pillow.  It’s the first time since DC he’s slept more than about three consecutive hours.  He’s not quite sure what to make of that.

“Has anyone ever told you your head is frigging heavy?” Tony asks, voice still rough with sleep, yet clearly amused.

Steve jerks away like he’s been hit with a live wire.  “Sorry,” he says awkwardly as Tony rotates his shoulder and makes a face at it.

Then he pulls out his phone, looking at the time.  “Oh damn, I have a board meeting in twenty minutes.”

As he pushes himself to his feet, adding, “JARVIS, start the coffee, would you?”, Steve thinks he seems remarkably nonplussed by them waking up in the living room.  On the sofa.  Together.

“Already done, sir.”

“Oh, bless my brain,” Tony says to no one in particular.  He takes a step away, then pauses and glances back at Steve, gaze altogether too perceptive for someone who just woke up ninety seconds ago.  “You good?”

“Better.”  It’s a pro forma response, but he’s surprised to find he means it.

Tony nods and offers, “You know I keep fucking weird hours—I’ll add you to the access list for the workshop; if you ever feel like a change of scenery, you’re always welcome down there.”  Waving at the room at large, he grins.  "I might be terrible company, but nice as this view is, DUM-E would be more than happy to keep you entertained, and it beats staring at a ceiling all night.”

Then he’s gone before Steve can say so much as “thank you”. To be honest, though, he doesn’t really know what the hell just happened.  So he does the only thing he logically can do: he heads back up to his floor long enough to change, then goes for a run.  A _long_ run.

 

**ii. with my heart like a stone and I put up no fight**

_8 November 2014_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Ever since he stood in the bowels of that old SHIELD bunker with Natasha Romanova, listening to the voice of a ghost tell him the horror story that had become of his best friend’s life, Steve’s been torn between telling Tony what he’d learned about his parents’ death or leaving well enough alone.  He doesn’t need to read a psych profile to recognize the complexity of that entire relationship.  He needs one even less to understand that the Howard he’d known during the war bore little resemblance to the Howard who’d raised Tony.  More importantly, he tries to convince himself, he has no reason whatsoever to take Arnim Zola at his word.

Except he’s living under Tony’s roof, quite literally, and with that had come research assistance and a blank check for resources in the search for Bucky.  That seems to place the onus on Steve to tell his friend what he knows, regardless of his certainty.  And after that odd night where they’d ended up sleeping on the couch together, he figures he’s not entirely unreasonable in thinking something has changed between them.  It makes his guilt over his silence that much more pronounced.

Rather than come to a decision, it culminates instead in Steve standing just outside the elevator doors in the penthouse foyer at five to midnight, eyes darting from the door to the interior of the room and back again.  He isn’t even certain if he’s trying to talk himself into staying or leaving, but ultimately Tony makes the decision for him.

“Are you planning to stand there all night studying my architecture, or would you like to, y’know, come _in_?” he asks, striding around the corner into view, and Steve starts like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Uh, I just—I meant—I—damn.”

Tony looks thoroughly unimpressed and rather amused, lines deepening around his mouth and eyes though he doesn’t quite smile.  “Well I’m glad you’ve made up your mind on that.”  He nods in the general direction of the living room, walking backward toward the gray leather sofa as he continues, “What’d you need?”

“Um.”  Following Tony into the room, he takes a seat in the opposite chair.

Tony snorts.  “If that’s all you’re going to say tonight, this is going to be a very complicated conversation.  Just spit it out—you should’ve figured out by now I’m kind of hard to shock.”

Reflexively, Steve flinches.  “You might be surprised.”

Brows pulling together in a frown, Tony gives him a long look.  “That good, huh?”

“Something like that.”  With a low groan, Steve rakes his hands through his hair, then drops his elbows to his knees as he develops a sudden keen interest in the weave of the carpet.  “There’s something I need to—that you need to know, before you get more involved with this search thing.”

“Okay…”  Tony draws out the word until it has about sixteen syllables, circling his right hand in a “go on” type of gesture.

Pulling in a deep breath, Steve keeps staring at the floor.  “You know Natasha and I found that abandoned SHIELD facility at Camp Lehigh,” he begins, and while he’s already told this part of the story, he doesn’t know how else to broach the rest.  “And we had that SHIELD flash drive, and we accidentally activated Arnim Zola’s…upload, of himself.”  He takes another deep breath, every bit as useless as the first.  “What I didn’t tell you was, in the middle of his lecture on how SHIELD was actually Hydra, he…he mentioned your parents.”

There’s a trace of wariness lurking in Tony’s voice as he replies, “Howard did help found SHIELD, so—”

“No.”  Cutting Tony off, Steve shakes his head before he can lose his nerve.  “I meant—he said the car accident wasn’t an accident,” he blurts out, “that Bu—that the Winter Soldier was sent to kill them.”

In the ensuing silence, he can hear his own heartbeat, hear the fine brush of wind against the windows.  When he finally musters the courage to look back up, Tony’s just sitting there watching him, but where Steve had expected anger or betrayal, he finds only resignation and a film of sorrow.

“I know,” Tony says eventually, and Steve can feel his jaw drop as he stares.

“You know,” he repeats numbly, and Tony nods.

“As well as I can.  We didn’t have the forensics back then to confirm it, and there’s no evidence left since we had no reason to think it was anything other than an accident.”  He shrugs, the gesture almost mechanical in its forced nonchalance.  “But I saw the file when I was putting that drive together for you.  It kind of makes sense, even if we can’t prove it one way or another.”

Steve knows he’s still staring slack-jawed at Tony like he’d just announced he was switching professions to become an underwater basket weaver, but he can’t quite manage to get his brain back in gear.  “You know,” he repeats again.

“Yeah.”

“Then…then _why_ would you ever agree to help him?”

Tony gives him a crooked half-smile, his expression wistful but unexpectedly soft.  “I agreed to help _you_ , Steve, regardless of what that entails.  Plus,” he notes, “I’m still an American, and we’re supposed to have this whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing going on.”

“And if we find him?” Steve asks before he can stop himself.  It’s an unfair question and he knows it; he’s just not sure if he wants to know the answer.

Again, Tony surprises him.  “ _When_ we find him,” he corrects gently, “we’ll…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Shaking his head slowly, Steve finds he still can’t wrap his head around it.  He opens his mouth, shuts it again, then asks hesitantly, “Did you know I'd tell you?”

“No,” Tony replies, unexpectedly frank.  “I thought you might when you were ready.”

“I didn't,” Steve feels obliged to point out, despite knowing he's all but shooting himself in the foot.

Tony shrugs one shoulder.  “You just did,” he counters, “and besides, I’m not exactly known for my history of rational reactions when Howard’s involved.”

In spite of his best efforts to stop, Steve keeps staring blankly, because whatever his expectations about this conversation, they had in no measure included any of the reality.  “I don’t know what to say,” he admits at last.

With that same half-smile, still sad around the edges yet painfully real, Tony suggests, “Then take it from someone who tends to talk anyway and put his foot in his mouth a lot—don’t say anything.  It is what it is, and if the tables were turned you’d be doing the same for me.”

“You can’t know that.”

This time the smile actually reaches his eyes.  “Yeah, I think I can.”

 

**iii. don’t let the curtain catch you (‘cause you’ve been here before)**

_29-30 November 2014_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Their first breakthrough occurs right after Thanksgiving, which in and of itself holds some sort of morbid irony, or universal mockery, or _something_.  Natasha sends in a tip from a friend who owes her a favor; Steve is sent geographic coordinates from a blocked number not even Tony can trace; Sam gets a call from an Air Force buddy currently stationed in Germany; and JARVIS and Tony’s facial recognition program pick up a couple of composite hits.

“You don’t think this is a little too—”  Steve pauses, groping for a suitable adjective, and Tony fills in for him.

“Convenient?  Coincidental?”

“Yeah.”

“I do.  But it’s what we’ve got, so.”  Shrugging one shoulder as he taps something out on his keyboard, Tony reaches over with the other hand to scribble on a sheet of paper.  “Sam said he had a couple days’ vacation stocked up, right?”

“Think it’s time to get him down here?”

“I think it can’t hurt; fresh eyes on each others’ intel might catch… _something_.”

Given how meager their options are, it’s hard to argue with that, so Steve ignores the clock that reads “2200h” and picks up the phone.  An hour later, Tony’s sending the SI jet down to DC, and Sam arrives at the Tower the next morning at the crack of dawn.

“Hey,” Sam says, coming through the doors into the lobby.

“Hey yourself,” Steve replies, passing his friend an access card and gripping his shoulder in greeting.  “Thanks for coming.”

With an easy grin, Sam shifts his old Air Force-issue duffel higher on his shoulder.  “Captain America called, I came.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve asks, “Are you going to say that every time?”

“Until it gets old, yeah, pretty much.”  His grin broadens, and they turn toward the bank of elevators.  “The jet sure as hell didn’t hurt.”

In spite of the circumstances, Steve laughs.  “Working with Stark is an, uh, experience.”

“Hey, it beats the back of a C-130,” Sam says.  “So where are we?”

“You’ve got a room upstairs,” Steve answers as the doors chime open, “and we’re mostly working out of Tony’s workshop.”

Gesturing at his lone bag, Sam says, “Well, this is all I’ve got, and I can drop it off whenever, so where’s this workshop?”

Grinning wryly, Steve suggests, “I’d say brace yourself, but that doesn’t quite cover it.”  Mercifully, Sam doesn’t ask for clarification.  Steve keys them into the workshop and, as the doors slide open, calls, “Tony?”

“Yo!” comes a disembodied voice from the back of the room, and Steve releases an exasperated huff of amusement.

“Welcome to life with Tony Stark,” he says dryly, “where ‘normal’ isn’t even in the dictionary.”

Sam stifles a laugh as the man himself comes around a corner, wiping engine grease off his hands with a rag that looks only marginally cleaner.  In a faded grey t-shirt and the kind of jeans that are so broken in they barely resemble denim anymore, he looks more like an underpaid mechanic on overtime than a billionaire genius.  Or, rather, he would were it not for the unmistakable glow of the reactor visible through his shirt.

“Tony,” he says by way of introduction, holding out his hand.

“I know,” Sam replies, chuckling.  “I don’t live under a rock.  Sam Wilson, it’s good to meet you.”

“I try,” Tony says brightly.  A beat, in which he tilts his head and looks at Sam like he’s an interesting new piece of tech that doesn’t quite make sense; then it passes, and he gestures in the general direction of a glass-and-steel table that at least sort of has a clear workspace.  “Welcome to chez Stark, grab a chair—or don’t, whichever.”

 _What?_ Steve mouths at Sam, pointing at Tony with one hand and Sam with the other; Sam spreads his hands in a clueless, “beats me” sort of move.

“So, I know what I’ve got,” Sam says as he drops his bag by the door and takes a seat at the table.  “You get anything useful?”

Still standing, with his palms flat on the table, Steve says, “Depends on how you define ‘useful’, I guess.  He—”  He nods at Tony.  “—has at least avoided getting blacklisted by the IC.  With his contacts, mine, Nat’s, and yours, we’re getting information, it’s just so scattered it isn’t exactly useful.”

“I’ve got roughly—wait, your contacts?” Sam asks, quirking an eyebrow at Tony in confusion.  “Were you SHIELD before the whole Iron Man thing, or…?”

“Sort of.  Unofficially,” he replies unhelpfully, accompanied by an equally vague wave of his hand.  With the other, he flicks up two holoscreens and starts sorting through seemingly random images.  “Point is, we’ve got him east of Germany and west of Japan, and anything in between is sort of fair game.”

And so it goes for the next hour, cross-referencing tips and sightings and everything from open-source to classified data.  They manage to cross off most of Poland east of Lublin, as well as Budapest and most of Hungary (“Natasha or Clint would have heard.  They’re famous in the IC there for all the wrong reasons, but they’d have heard,” Tony says.  Neither Steve nor Sam are feeling sufficiently brave to ask how he knows that).  After running through a list of the Soldier’s known or suspected ops, they come down to Belarus, Slovakia, Western Ukraine, or anywhere in Romania north of Oradea.

“Great, now we only have four Eastern European countries to search,” Steve says tiredly, then pauses.  “It’s sad that that is actually an improvement.”

“It looks like he’s moving back toward Russia, which both makes perfect sense and none at all, and—”  Tony stops mid-sentence and points at Sam; if he were a cartoon character, a lightbulb would have gone off over his head.  “ _You_!” he exclaims, and Sam and Steve both stare at him as though he’s lost his mind.  “I have been trying to place you for a month! Afghanistan, desert, 2009, right?  Air Force pararescue unit, you were with Colonel—”

“James Rhodes, yeah,” Sam concludes, smiling a little sheepishly.  “I figured you wouldn’t remember.”

For his part, Steve’s still staring in confusion, trying to figure out how they went from point A to point GGG in three seconds.  “Um, what just happened?”

“Sorry,” Tony says, shaking his head.  “My three-month vacation from hell in the desert?  Wilson here was on the team Rhodey hauled through the country to drag me out.”

“I would’ve said something, I just didn’t—”  Trailing off, Sam shrugs, and Tony laughs.

“No, you’re not wrong.  I only vaguely remember faces, which is why it took me a month and a half to place yours, but consciousness stopped being an option before I could get ranks, never mind names.”  Sitting down, he adds, “So, you know, thank you for saving my life and all that, albeit five years late.”

“Anytime.  So long as I don’t ever have to do it quite that way again,” Sam replies with a perfectly straight face.

“I have no plans for that,” Tony says, matching him tone for tone.  “Anyway.  Russia.”

\----------

Later, when they’ve run every possible permutation of factors until they all have migraines and can no longer see straight, Sam’s off making phone calls for arrangements with the VA while Steve is on the sofa failing to read a book.

“Didn’t realize you liked reading upside down and backward,” Tony says as he passes behind the couch.

Steve hadn’t even heard the other man come in, and he looks down with a start.  He’d known he was reading the same paragraph over and over.  Admittedly, that had been spectacularly unproductive, but he has absolutely no idea how he’d gone from there to holding it the wrong way up.  He’s still staring uncomprehendingly at the book when Tony comes over to sit beside him.  Taking it smoothly from Steve’s hands, he places it facedown and still open on the coffee table to mark his place.

“Hey, we’re actually making progress,” he points out.  “It’s slow, but it _is_ progress.”

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly.

Nudging Steve’s knee with his own, Tony waits until he looks up.  “So why do you look _more_ depressed than you did before we found anything?”

“I—”  Steve shuts his mouth, slumping into the plush cushions as he stares at the ceiling.  “I’m grateful we’re getting somewhere,” he continues, when the words in his head are something marginally more coherent than a useless jumble of thoughts.  “And please don’t think I’m not, or that I somehow don’t know we wouldn’t be this far along without your help.  It’s just…the more we find, the more I feel like…”  He trails off, too many endings for that sentence lodging in his throat like logs in a dam, but Tony nods.

“Like you’re looking for a stranger?” he offers, too much empathy in his tone for it to be derived from anything but lived experience.

“Yeah,” he says again.  “I keep reading the intel like we’re looking for Bucky, and seventy-five percent of the time I’m wrong, because we _aren’t_ looking for Bucky.”  He hesitates, then says, so softly Tony has to lean closer even though he’s only two feet away, “We’re hunting a Russian operative, and I keep forgetting that, but the more times I’m wrong the more I wonder if there will be anything left to find.”

“There will be,” Tony replies, with a resolute finality to his voice that finally makes Steve peer more closely at him.

“How can you possibly know that?”

Something nebulous, indefinable, intangible softens in Tony’s face.  “Because he has things worth coming back to.”

There are a thousand responses to that, and simultaneously none at all.  So Steve reaches over, lays a hand on Tony’s forearm for a moment and hopes for a spontaneous second of telekinesis.  Silence drifts into the room, but neither of them make a move to leave.

After some indeterminate amount of time, Steve says, almost unconsciously, “He told me I was his mission.”

There’s an almost puzzling wealth of understanding in Tony’s eyes as he shifts his weight, draping his arm over the back of the couch so he can see Steve (who then thinks they’re spending entirely too much time having conversations on sofas like this).  “Steve, he was under ord—” he starts to say, but Steve’s already shaking his head, and he turns to face Tony.

“No, Tony, don’t you get it?  Until that moment on the bridge, until the mask came off?  He was _my_ mission.  I was supposed to kill him.”

Tony’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, warm and comforting in a way most people—Steve included—usually don’t think he can be.  “You had no way of knowing.”

“Tasha told me—”

“The rumors,” Tony finishes for him.  “Which is all they were: rumors.  You couldn’t have known what happened to him when his unit got captured.  And even if you did, you’re exactly one in the seven billion people on this planet for whom the serum actually worked as designed.  Believing it was really him would have been wishful thinking, and you knew that.”  Briefly, he tightens his grip.  “There’s some truth to the whole ‘seeing is believing’ bit, you know.”

Looking away again, Steve points out, “I could have killed him.  I _would_ have killed him,” the words pulled from him as reluctantly as teeth in a root canal.

“Yes, you could have,” Tony replies simply, and in spite of himself Steve recoils like the words had been a physical slap to the face.  “No, hey, listen to me,” Tony says, closing what little distance remains between them to frame Steve’s face with his hands.  His touch is whisper-soft, as though he’s afraid Steve will shatter in his palms like so much spun glass, and Steve would protest if he were even half-certain Tony was wrong.  “You could have, he could have; you can go back and forth on this all day—from either side—and you will never come to a conclusion that will change that, because it’s true.

“But this is also true: you didn’t, either of you.”

“But—”

“You didn’t,” Tony repeats firmly, cutting off his protest.  Then he pauses, almost visibly weighing his words as his hand drops from Steve’s face back to his shoulder.  Steve thinks the smart thing would be to leave, but he doesn’t, not least because part of him thinks he deserves the censure he’s sure is coming.  Until Tony says, “We go up against Doom and his Doombots and who do you target first?”

“I—what?” Steve asks, startled and confused, and perhaps just a touch angry because he’d been trying to make a _point_.

But Tony just shakes his head, holding up a hand before Steve can follow that question up with the “what the fuck?” that almost instinctively wants to follow.  “Work with me here, it’ll make sense, I promise.”

In the month and change that Steve’s been living at the Tower, he has learned enough of this man to not dismiss him out of turn, presuming the shift in conversation to be nothing more than some manic, egotistical tangent.  So he swallows down the sharp responses that lie chambered on his tongue like bullets waiting for the strike of the firing pin and answers: “You go after Doom—or at least concentrate more of your forces on him.”

“Why.”

It’s a statement, not a question, which renders this entire conversation all the more illogical.  Even in the face of his frustration, Steve frowns: Tony’s a better tactician and strategist than he lets on; he should know the answer to this.

“He’s the command center, the strongest part of the unit,” Steve says, side-eyeing the other man despite his attempts at restraint.  “Which makes him the most dangerous: take him out and the rest are less critical—you don’t send the foot soldiers after him.”

“Right,” Tony concurs.  He then proceeds to sit there in silence, sending Steve a pointed look that is clearly supposed to mean… _something_.

“Right,” Steve repeats slowly, trying to determine if they’re even having the conversation he’d thought they’d been having.  After a few moments, Tony sighs.  Steve can’t exactly blame him.

“Steve.”  He waits until Steve meets his eye, then continues, “The footage of your fight on that bridge was everywhere.  I had JARVIS pull a 360-degree compile when I heard what happened and I was trying to find info on Bucky.”

Sighing tiredly, Steve shakes his head, thinking that if this is where the conversation had been going, it was a massive waste of time and breath for them both.  “Everyone saw that,” he points out.  It’s Tony’s turn to sigh—again—though the roll of his eyes is wryly affectionate, if a trifle exasperated (it closely resembles how Pepper tends to look at Tony, come to think of it, and now Steve starts thinking he should be more concerned for his own sanity).

“I know,” Tony replies, “but not everyone knows battle tactics, and they sure as shit don’t know what it’s like to fight next to you.”  He pauses, then seems to decide that obvious statements are necessary.  Again, Steve can’t really blame him.  “I have.  And if I had to fight you, even with Sam and Natasha on your side, _you_ are the biggest threat.  Any tactician with two firing neurons would know that.

“The Winter Soldier should, by that logic, have gone after you himself.  Instead, he went after Natasha and sent _STRIKE_ after you.  Even if you’d been outnumbered and outgunned thirty to one, they’re good, but they’re no match for you.  Whether or not Nat was familiar to him, the Soldier _would know that_.”  He pauses again, and Steve blinks at him, struggling to catch up and failing, feeling increasingly like there’s something very large and prominent in front of his face that he’s missing.

Apparently he’s right, because the next thing Tony says is, “So, then, if the Soldier has taken over completely, if your friend is no longer there at all, why in god’s name wouldn’t he have gone after you first and sent STRIKE after Sam and Natasha?”

Blindsided despite the three thousand patient attempts Tony had made to lead him there, because now it seems so obvious he doesn’t understand how he missed it in the first place, Steve finds himself gaping like a dying goldfish.  “I—he—you—” he manages to stammer before conceding defeat and dropping his head into his hands.  “Fuck.”

“Aaaaaand now you got it,” Tony says, but even beneath the sarcasm there’s not a drop of condescension or arrogance in his voice, just the compassion of someone who’s been there before (and that’s a topic Steve needs to bookmark for a time when his brain actually _works_.  “He chose—actively, I might add—to _distract_ you.  Letter of the law—or in this case letter of the order—not the spirit.”  He tightens his grip on Steve’s shoulder again.

“James Barnes is still in there or my name isn’t Tony Stark,” he says kindly, filled with all the quiet conviction Steve wishes he could find.  “We will get him back.   _You_ will get him back.  Your Bucky isn’t dead, Steve, I would bet you almost anything.  You pulled him back from the brink, twice now; and _he. fell. with. you_.”  He speaks slowly, each word a discrete, holistic entity, evidence of something greater.  “There is history between you two that absolutely nothing can change, but if you’re going to hold onto the things that are irrefutably, unforgettably true, don’t forget the parts of that history that are _good_.”

Steve stays silent for long minutes, the words running through his head like a reel of film, or a stuck record needle.  Tony doesn’t let go, and Steve searches his friend’s face, his eyes, for something—anything—that would suggest Tony’s only trying to make him feel better.

He doesn’t find it.

Finally he draws in a lungful of air, deep and heavy like he’s been holding his breath underwater.  Tony releases his grip, though his hand drops only to the back of the sofa, just behind Steve’s shoulder.

“It feels impossible.”

Tony’s answering smile is bittersweet, more heavily skewed toward the former.  Steve can’t help wishing he knew how to smooth that look from his face the way Tony’s done for him almost without fail since he set foot in the Tower a month ago.  “Forgiveness always does,” he answers softly, “forgiving yourself even more so.”  His smile turns lopsided, and he adds, “Trust me, I’m the international expert on it.  I should probably be sending in a patent application.”

Steve huffs out a breath that might on another day pass for a laugh.  “There should be an expiration date on these things,” he says, and if it comes out sounding more lamenting than he intended, Tony does him the favor of not calling him on it.

“There should,” he agrees.  “Maybe one day there will be.”

“We should be so lucky,” Steve replies before he can stop himself.

Shrugging one shoulder, Tony lets his weight sink into the cushions.  “You’re about this far from being an actual, perfect human,” he says lightly, holding up thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart.  “You probably will be.”

This time it’s an actual laugh, startled out of him as he reaches over to smack Tony on the knee.  “Shut up,” he grumbles, and Tony grins.

What Steve doesn’t say is, “There _is_ such a thing as redemption.”  He knows Tony would never believe it.

 

**iv. no one’s fighting anyone, we’re all dancing on the ground**

_3 January 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“Natasha Romanov, are you _trying_ to get me drunk?” Maria Hill asks, skeptically eyeing the glass of sangria (her third) that’s appeared over her shoulder, and Natasha laughs out loud.

“Maria, we are well past the ‘trying’ part; you _are_ drunk,” she informs the other woman with a grin, and there’s a stifled choking noise off to the left that absolutely no one will own up to.

Gradually over the course of December, Stark Tower really had become Avengers Tower, each team member slowly gravitating toward Manhattan.  Thor had returned toward the end of November, informing them of his decision to remain on Midgard.  (“On behalf of the entire human race,” Tony had said somberly, “I apologize profusely in advance.”)  No one pushed for details, in part because whatever could make a demigod look like…well, like a vanilla human who’d gone three rounds with a demigod, probably wasn’t good news.  For the rest, they figured he’d tell them when and if he chose, so Tony handed him the metaphorical keys to another of the Tower’s residential floors and refused to take no for an answer.

Maria had already been there: once she’d taken the job offer at SI, she’d reluctantly accepted the residence, as well, after approximately four thousand assurances that it wasn’t charity.  The preceding near-decade of her life had been spent primarily in SHIELD facilities, to the point that she’d foregone having an apartment or a house, selling half her belongings and putting the rest in storage.  Unfortunately, her previous employer getting itself effectively blacklisted and demolished made acquiring a place to live in a city like Manhattan far more difficult than it once would have been.  As a result, she’d ended up living where she worked (again) and becoming terrifyingly good friends with Pepper Potts.

Natasha, along with Clint Barton, had shown not long before the holidays, and it doesn’t escape Steve that the majority of them don’t have family to go home to; instead, they all seem to have created their own.  Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis had accepted holiday invitations to join Thor; Clint had brought Laura out, thereby introducing them all to the wife and kids no one except Natasha knew he had; Sam had come down both for the holidays and for some intel consolidation; and James Rhodes had joined them mostly because Tony hadn’t given him much of a choice (not like he’s protesting that much).

SI’s annual holiday party had been held the week before Christmas (“Remind me why I decided to work for you again?” Maria had asked Pepper in exasperation), leaving the team free for their own, quieter gathering the actual week of.  But of course, life at Stark Tower would not be complete without a full-scale New Year’s Eve party that rendered even the most highly-trained of them a little fuzzy on the details.  Thor bringing actual, honest-to-god _mead_ certainly hadn’t helped mitigate that at all.  Steve’s fairly certain half of New York City’s elite had made an appearance at one point or another, including Matt Damon (or at least, he’s pretty sure that’s his name; there’s about even odds his name was actually Chris), Taylor Swift, Paul Bettany, and Denzel Washington, and those are just the people for whom he could match names to faces.

Tonight, though, is a smaller affair, limited to the team and their close friends or partners.  The irony of an accidental party to recover _from_ a party escapes no one and goes pointedly unmentioned.  They’re all grateful they’ve miraculously managed to escape a call for the past two days, just like they’re all going out of their way to avoid mentioning that aloud and jinxing themselves.  Ergo, in lieu of sparring or mission prep or anything remotely work related, they’d planted themselves in the common room and ended up never relocating despite their best, halfhearted efforts.  The lights of the city are spread out before them like an oversized holiday display, glinting through the bank of floor-to-ceiling, one-way tinted windows as evening fell.  After the amount of havoc they’ve wreaked in the name of trying to protect said city, it seems somehow fitting that this is their view.

Clint’s been cooking for the last three hours, refusing all offers of assistance barring Steve and Thor’s single grocery run.  Bruce has been baking while Darcy steals every edible thing on the counter.  Natasha’s been bartending so adroitly that almost everyone present is at least mildly tipsy.  Maria, Jane, and Pepper have been tucked into a group of armchairs, quite likely plotting the end of the world.

For his part, Tony’s situated himself sort of off to the side—not apart, per se, but more on the fringes than is typical for Tony-Stark-the-billionaire.  He hasn’t been drinking anything stronger than beer all night (with the exception of that one cocktail Natasha had shoved in his hand, because he wasn’t stupid enough to decline), and he’s leaning back against the wall, just watching the room with the neck of the bottle dangling casually from his fingers.  Steve hasn’t seen him look this much at ease since he first showed up at the Tower in October.  To be fair, Steve had brought the search for Bucky along with him, and when SHIELD fell a good deal of the blowback ended up on Tony’s literal and metaphorical desks.  But for the first time since the rest of the team arrived, he looks less a guest in his own home and more like someone relaxed in the company of people he trusts.

Steve would swear up, down, and sideways that he is absolutely _not_ noticing Tony more than usual at any point during the evening.  Until, that is, ten minutes into a debate with Natasha regarding the merits of brute force versus electrical shocks in battle, when she sighs and elbows him in the side.

“Oh, go talk to him already, would you, Rogers, instead of making eyes at him across the room,” she says, all fond exasperation as she casts a pronounced look in Tony’s direction.

Steve turns red and tries to protest, which ultimately manifests in indignant, incoherent, utterly useless spluttering.  Rolling her eyes, Natasha tugs the collar of his green button-down into place and shoves at his shoulder.

“Go.”

So he does.  Because no one with an iota of sense argues with Natasha—he’s truly only doing out of self-preservation—especially when she’s wearing violet silk and looks elegant and entirely innocuous, enough that you could forget the number of ways in which she could kill you without breaking a sweat.  And if he downs the rest of his beer in one go before setting the empty bottle on the counter, it’s just for sake of convenience, nothing more.

Tony looks up as he approaches, corners of his mouth quirking up in a welcoming smile.  “Hey, you,” he says, and Steve settles against the wall beside him, in close enough proximity for their shoulders to touch.  There’s something inexplicably pleasant about the way Tony leans into the contact.

“We’ve kinda taken over your place,” Steve points out, gesturing across the room, and Tony’s gaze tracks the movement.

There are fewer than two dozen people present, but it feels more comfortably crowded than the formal ballroom had with nearly three hundred guests.  It’s all easy conversation and laughter, mingling with the aromas redolent of family holidays emanating from the kitchen.  The sense of ease amongst a group of type-A, tightly wound, supremely careful people is almost intoxicating in and of itself.

“Yeah, bunch of freeloaders, all of you.”

Tony takes a sip of his beer, grinning around the mouth of the bottle as he shoots a sidelong glance at Steve.  For his part, Steve absolutely _does not_ end up trying not to stare at the curve of his lips around the glass.

Instead, he replies, “We’re horrible,” nodding in agreement as he angles his body so he’s at least partially facing Tony.  “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”  Tony’s expression adopts a hint of surprise at the seeming non sequitur, brown eyes widening just slightly and eyebrows pulling upward, but Steve continues before he can respond.  “So thank you, Tony, for everything you’ve done for this team.  We didn’t start like one,” he admits, cringing inwardly as he recalls that first, volatile interaction on the Helicarrier, “but we’re starting to feel like one.  And,” he adds, “thank you for everything you’ve done for _me_ , when you had no reason whatsoever to do it.”

Tony doesn’t reply, but Steve spies the nervous twitch of his fingers against the neck of the bottle still in his hand.  It had taken Steve all of ten minutes living under the same roof to realize exactly how averse Tony is to accepting compliments or genuine praise, but it doesn’t stop him from offering them anyway.  The last thing he wants is for Tony to assume none of them notice the unspoken gestures.

“When I woke up,” he says quietly, watching the play of Tony’s fingers across the glass because it’s easier than trying to watch his face, “I think the thing I missed most was that sense of belonging, like I had a place in the world, a role to fill.  I had a team, I had Bucky, I had the Army; and then the next day I didn’t.”  His smile might be a touch strained, but permeated with less bitterness than it has been in past months, and he feels Tony’s eyes on him as he continues.  “I haven’t—I’m not—I _can’t_ put that part of my life behind me, not yet, but it’s getting easier, especially with the team.”  Hesitating, he mulls over the words waiting on the tip of his tongue and lets them fall before he can change his mind.  “And with you.”

This time he does risk a glance up, and his heartbeat quickens at the look on Tony’s face, all wide eyes and a little hope, a touch of eagerness.

“I think you’re giving me too much credit,” Tony says, but his voice is a touch lower, rougher, and Steve feels it like sparks across his skin.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “but that doesn’t change my feelings on the matter.”  It isn’t until Tony looks straight at him, licks his lips, that Steve is suddenly, acutely aware of how he’s been focussed on Tony’s mouth, but he can’t quite bring himself to regret it.

Tony swallows, and Steve tracks the shift of his Adam’s apple half-consciously.  “How _do_ you feel?” Tony asks at last.

It’s a simple question, but one that hangs heavily in the air between them.  They’ve been drifting around one another like planets in orbit since Steve first arrived at the Tower, drawn together by the gravitational force of insomnia and shared trauma and a sometimes-desperate need for distraction.  While Steve’s not entirely sure of the extent to which their relationship has changed, he _is_ fairly certain he’s not the only one who noticed.

A deep breath; then he dips his head slightly as he leans forward.  “How about I just show you?”

He feels Tony’s huff of laughter in the warm pass of his breath over Steve’s cheek.  They’re close, practically body-to-body, and there’s a magnetic pull to it that he has no desire to fight, giddiness bubbling up in his throat when Tony doesn’t pull away.

“Show me what you got, soldier,” Tony murmurs, for Steve’s ears alone, and then his words are swallowed by Steve’s lips on his.

It’s gentle, perhaps a hairsbreadth shy of hesitant, but that simple brush of skin on skin promises something more, something Steve can feel like an electrical current twining around his body.  Tony tastes like black coffee and cinnamon and a trace of the IPA he’s been drinking, and the simple blue sweater he’s wearing is soft as kitten fur beneath Steve’s hands and probably cost more than his first apartment.  It’s better than any fantasy, and he lifts his hand to Tony’s jaw as if to hold him there or pull him closer, to ground them both in reality.  A minute later and they pull apart, Tony grinning broadly at him like it’s Christmas morning.  Steve can feel the same expression mirrored on his own face, and he’s about to lean back in for a second kiss when a bottle cap comes flying through the air to bounce off the wall just above their heads.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Clint shouts from the kitchen.  He’s holding a pot of chili, tapping his foot impatiently, but he’s also smiling fondly (with a good measure of “oh, blackmail material!”) and covered in what looks like flour.  “Dinner’s ready, and I did _not_ sweat over a hot stove all day just to watch you two make out.”

And the moment is broken as Steve is all at once _very_ cognizant of exactly how public this is, and how everyone is staring at them.  Some of them are less subtle than others, like Sam with his wolf whistle versus Thor saluting them with his glass, but that makes it no less awkward.  He drops his head onto Tony’s shoulder, feeling the blush creeping up his neck to his face, but he can’t seem to stop grinning like a loon, either, and Tony’s fingers combing through the fine hairs at the nape of his neck helps not at all.

“Fuck off, Barton,” Tony calls back with a laugh Steve feels more than hears.

“Love you, too, Stark,” Clint replies cheerfully, and Steve lifts his head just in time to catch the look Laura flashes her husband.  It looks suspiciously like “I told you so”.

“Oh my god,” Steve says, more to himself than anything.  His face feels like it’s on fire and his cheeks hurt from smiling and he can’t imagine anywhere he’d rather be.

Shrugging, Tony acknowledges, “Maybe we could have been more subtle about this,” but when Steve looks utterly unmoved, Tony kisses him again, and any retort Steve could have given dies on his tongue.

Pushing off the wall, Tony reaches down to squeeze Steve’s wrist for one brief moment, then heads over to the bar to help Natasha refill drinks as Pepper and Rhodey finish setting the table while Laura deputizes Jane and Thor into bringing the food out.  Before Steve can move in to help, Sam just _appears_ beside him, and Steve considers idly whether he was too distracted to notice or Sam was too stealthy to hear, or if it was a combination of both.  Then again, the man’s sporting a truly awful Christmas sweater that would scare wild animals, so it’s likely the former.

“I was wondering how long it’d take you two to figure that out,” Sam says with a broad, knowing grin.

Steve glares halfheartedly, grumbling under his breath.  “I didn’t think we were _that_ obvious,” he mumbles, because honestly, Sam’s only been in the same room with the two of them for a grand total of maybe ten hours.  And that’s being generous.

“Oh, you’re not,” Sam reassures him, still grinning gleefully.  “But we know you.”

“You are all terrible people,” Steve informs him mulishly, “and I need new friends.”

“No, you don’t, you love us anyway.”  Steve snorts, and Sam adds, “I’d give him the ‘if you hurt him I’ll kill you’ speech if I didn’t think Romanov had already gotten there.”

With a roll of his eyes, Steve replies, “Even if she hadn’t, he’s given himself that speech too many damn times now.”  Sam opens his mouth, and Steve interjects before he can say the inevitable.  “I already got it from Pepper and Rhodey, so you can save your breath.”

Sam laughs, toasting him with his drink.  “Seriously, though, I’m happy for you.”

“Seriously, though, I’m afraid I’m hallucinating,” Steve shoots back, but the fact that he still has what feels like a permanent, dopey smile on his face counters any potential bite that sentence could have held.  In response, Sam simply tows him over to the table, which is big enough to seat an army and laden with enough food to feed one.

It is quite possibly the longest dinner of Steve’s life.  The entire night is perfect, and no one—himself included—is quite ready to surrender this rare moment of respite when they can be _people_ and not operatives or superheroes.  He knows full well that the moment something were to happen, every agent in the room would be on full alert and in operational mode in the blink of an eye, but there’s a luxury in leaving that persona on the back burner, letting themselves relax into the company and the environment and the presence of their friends.  The food is excellent, and Clint refuses to answer any questions about the recipes.  He just smiles noncommittally, makes the occasional vague reference to old family secrets, and doles out additional helpings until they’re all too stuffed to think that hard about it.

Under normal circumstances, Steve would succumb to the comfort and warmth, enjoying the camaraderie and the meal and the peace.  Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t still be able to taste Tony on his tongue, and he wouldn’t be slowly losing his mind every time Tony touches him.  It isn’t overt, and Steve’s fairly certain it’s not even deliberate, but the brush of fingertips as they sit beside one another or pass plates, the steadying hand on his hip as Tony passes by, the easy bump of their shoulders—all of it only serves to drive Steve mad in a delicious tease that makes him want to lay the other man out right then and there.  His only consolation is that Tony seems every bit as eager, more brightness in his smile, little glances thrown Steve’s way, more of the restless energy that is so very _Tony_.

Finally, after their plates are empty and they’re all sitting there rapidly approaching the precipice of a food coma, Clint interrupts whatever it was he’d been talking about to say, “Oh, just go already.”  His grin takes the sting from the comment, and Steve tries not to blush; if the look Clint shares with Maria and Laura is any indication, he fails miserably.

“As much as I would love to see the Captain America gun show live,” Maria chimes in, laughter dancing in her eyes, “it loses its charm if it involves Stark ripping your clothes off in the middle of the room.”

“We aren’t—” Steve starts to protest, just as Clint raises his hand and says, “I’d wanna see that.”

Steve and Maria send him equally flat looks that slide off him like water off a duck’s back.  Beside her husband, Laura looks like she’s trying not to break into hysterical laughter.

“What?” Clint says, spreading his hands innocently.  “I have a pregnant wife, two kids, a dog, a dozen chickens, and one very self-obsessed goose.  I get my kicks where I can.”

That seems to break everyone’s control, because not laughing at his straight-faced delivery is next to impossible.  Steve really had been trying for subtlety, but the evidence seems to increasingly indicate that he’s been rapidly losing that ability since he met Tony.

“Just go,” Maria says, and if there’s a hint of a whine in her voice she’ll deny it long past the day she dies.  “Your presence is affecting everyone’s libido, and since _some_ of us are not getting laid tonight, please, go.  We can live vicariously through you, as long as we don’t have to get the details.  Or be witnesses.”

Pushing himself to his feet, Steve’s still laughing, can still feel the heat in his face as Tony stands along with him.  “Thanks, guys, this was not awkward at all,” Tony says cheerfully.

“Our pleasure,” Clint replies with a grin, clinking his glass against Laura’s, then Maria’s and Natasha’s.  “And no,” he adds before Steve can offer, “you _cannot_ help with the cleanup, so shoo.”

Hands raised in capitulation, Steve shakes his head.  “All right, all right, we’re going!  Thanks for—”

“You’re welcome,” Clint interrupts.

Grinning, Tony plants a hand in the middle of Steve’s back and pushes him through the archway into the hall.  “Okay, we can take a hint!” he shouts over his shoulder, and laughter follows them into the elevator.

Once the doors close and the car starts moving toward the penthouse, Steve leans back against the wall.  “Well, that was…”

“Very Clint?” Tony suggests, and Steve snorts.

“Not quite what I was going to say, but that’ll work, too.”  Shooting him a sheepish smile, Steve offers, “Sorry.”

Tony glances over at him, one eyebrow raised in surprise.  “For what?”

At a loss for a useful description, Steve shrugs and gestures awkwardly between them.  “Ambushing you?”

Tony laughs, low and warm, and his expression is amused when he says, “Steve, babe, I would not call that an ambush.”  He pivots sharply, pinning Steve between his body and the wall of the elevator.  “This, though?” he says, close enough for Steve to feel the whisper of breath against his ear.  “This is a little more like it.”  Leaning up and in, he presses his lips to Steve’s; it’s less gentle than that earlier first kiss, but it isn’t rough, for all that it’s rife with want.

“I had intended to do this slightly less publicly,” Steve points out breathlessly when they break apart.

Tony laughs again, tugging Steve out of the elevator by his shirtfront as he walks backward into the penthouse, lights fading up to guide their way.  “We’re technically in my house,” he counters with a grin, “and there aren’t any reporters with cameras wandering around, so I’d say this is sufficiently private.”

One hand still wrapped in Steve’s shirt, Tony uses the other to twine their fingers together; when the backs of his knees hit the arm of the sofa, he goes toppling backward, taking Steve with him.  The soldier at least has the presence of mind to catch himself on his free hand instead of crushing Tony, and he gets a thoughtful look for his trouble.

“Okay, not quite what I was going for, but I can work with this.”  Mischief sparking in his eyes, Tony wraps his hand around the back of Steve’s neck, pulling him back in.

When they break for oxygen again, Steve asks, “How private is this floor, exactly?”

He feels as though his skin is on fire, hypersensitive everywhere their bodies are touching even through the layers of clothing, and he has no desire whatsoever to get up and move if he doesn’t have to.  Tony biting thoughtfully at his lower lip shouldn’t be as distracting as it is, either.  And yet.

“Pretty damn private, but…JARVIS, engage lockdown protocol—no one gets through the doors unless it’s the literal end of the world,” he says, and Steve can’t help but notice the tenor of his voice, pitched at least an octave lower than normal.

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS replies promptly, and Tony shoots Steve a smug grin.

“Okay, good,” Steve says, immediately dropping his mouth back to Tony’s, who laughs against his lips and kisses back just as hard, hot and greedy as he draws Steve in.

One hand threading through Tony’s hair, Steve’s half-consciously trying to keep from letting Tony take all of his weight until he gets a poke in the ribs for his efforts.  “You and your supersoldierness aren’t going to crush me,” he mumbles, sliding his hands under Steve’s shirt and tracing the smooth planes of muscle with his fingers.

“Did you do the math on that?” Steve asks, arching into Tony’s touch, and he gets a grin in answer.

“Would it matter if I did?” he asks, rolling his hips against Steve’s.

“Nope, never mind, not at all,” Steve says, capturing Tony’s mouth with his own again.

But Tony is not and never has been one to play fair, so he opens his thighs and hooks his left ankle behind Steve’s knee; one sharp pull has Steve dropping on top of him with a yelp.  It promptly turns into a moan when Tony does that slow roll thing with his hips again.

“Better?”  Tony nips at his lower lip, and Steve nods.

“Much,” Steve agrees, and now that his hands are free he slides his palms across Tony’s sides.

He isn’t surprised to find strong, lean muscle beneath his fingers, but it’s nice all the same.  The accompanying realization that he can touch as much as he likes, that Tony’s right there with him, is as much a turn-on as the touch itself.  Tony is warm beneath him, somehow simultaneously compliant and a little aggressive, and Steve wonders if he blinks, all this disappears.

“Hey,” Tony says softly, hand coming to rest against the side of Steve’s face, “come back, wherever you just went.”

With a sheepish half-laugh, Steve leans into the touch.  “That’s hardly a problem.”

“Oh, I beg to differ—I must not be doing a good enough job at distracting you if you’re still thinking, never mind _talking_ ,” Tony informs him with a wicked grin, but then he sobers, eyes meeting Steve’s and holding his gaze.  “You sure you’re good with this?”

Smiling, Steve ducks his head to kiss Tony, deep like he’s trying to inhale the very essence of him.  “I might not be sure of a whole hell of a lot lately,” he answers when they come up for air, “but I have no doubts whatsoever about this.”

Tony’s answering smile is breathtaking.  “Good.  That’s good,” he says, kissing Steve again, soft as a promise.

 

**v. the ghosts that we knew made us black and blue**

_4 January 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Steve wakes to sunlight pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling glass, tinted just enough to keep the light from being completely blinding.  The first thing he’s aware of is that this is not his room; the second is that he’s not alone.

“Morning,” Tony says as he rolls to face Steve, and he must have been awake for a while in order to sound as alert as he does.

“Morning,” Steve replies as the previous night comes flooding back, and he can’t help smiling as he stretches upward for a kiss.  The angle means he hits Tony’s jaw instead of his mouth, but he just woke up, he’s excused.

There’s an amused, self-satisfied glint in the other man’s eye.  “Sleep well?” he asks, altogether too innocently.  Rather than dignify that with a response, Steve reaches behind himself for his pillow, then whacks Tony in the face with it.  Much more dignified.  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Tony says with a grin, sliding down until he’s level with Steve before leaning in for a proper kiss.

He thinks for a moment they’ll have time for things to get a little more interesting, maybe replay the night before, until JARVIS interrupts.  If it’s possible for an AI to sound apologetic, he does.

“Sir, Captain, please excuse the interruption, but there’s new information regarding the Soldier.  Agents Romanov and Wilson will meet you in your workshop in ten minutes.”

“JARVIS, you have terrible timing,” Tony grumbles against Steve’s shoulder.

“Next time shall I hold the information until you are otherwise unoccupied?”

In spite of the uneasy sensation that rears its head every time JARVIS—or anyone—gives them an update about Bucky, Steve can’t help laughing.  “Thank you, JARVIS,” he says in the general direction of the ceiling.  To Tony he adds, “Only you would manage to give your AI the capacity for sarcasm.  And intonation in general.”

“Shut up, I’m smart,” Tony mutters, and Steve steals another kiss from him before sliding out from under the covers.

“So they tell me,” he says with a grin as he pulls on enough clothing to get himself down to his own floor to change.  He ducks in time to avoid the pillow Tony chucks in his direction, making for the door.  “Meet you downstairs,” he calls over his shoulder.

Nine minutes and the world’s fastest shower later, he keys himself into the workshop, Sam about thirty seconds behind him.  Natasha and Tony are already at work, an impressive array of hard copy folders, a few tablets, and screens spread between them, and she spares them the barest of glances when they walk in.

“Good, you’re here,” she says by way of greeting.

“Good morning to you, too, Romanov,” Sam says as he comes around the table, snagging a chair with his foot as he does.  “What’d you find?”

“Tip from an NIS…contact,” she replies.  “He owes me a favor.”

What Steve wants to say is, “Who doesn’t?”  What he actually says is, “NIS for which country?”

With a flicking motion of her fingers across the holoscreen in front of her, Natasha sends whatever information she’s looking at to the rest of them.  “This time, Bulgaria.  He’s not going to be there—or at least, of all the possible locations, it’s unlikely.  When we were running ops together, we didn’t spend much time there; I think we had one assignment in Varna, ditto for Belarus and everything above Lithuania.  But he’s tapped some old contacts in Serbia and Slovenia, and Barnes seems to be moving through the latter, spotted in Dornava just yesterday.  We think he might be heading for Croatia.”

“Croatia,” Steve repeats, and she shrugs.

“It was a thing,” she says as if that explains anything at all.  In fairness, to her mind it likely does.  “If he’s operating at all like he used to, instinct is telling him to head for Russia as indirectly as possible, which probably means Bosnia, then Serbia, into Romania.”

Without looking up from his tablet, Sam asks, “If we can figure out where he’s been, can you ballpark where he’s going?”

“Toss-up,” she replies as she marks up a map with a legend that probably only makes sense to her.  “I know some people in the area, and I know how he used to think, but I don’t know if that’s relevant anymore.  We’ll find something, I’m relatively sure, but tracking an operative as good as the Soldier is never predictable or easy.”

“You have enough to be on the ground?”

Shifting her attention to Tony, Natasha nods.  “It’s more concrete than what we’ve had, and we’ll have a better chance with firsthand intel.  While I wouldn’t bank on actually finding _him_ , there’s a decent possibility I’ll see things in person that others wouldn’t catch.”

Tony taps some information into the system.  “There’ll be a jet at the SI airfield whenever you’re ready, unmarked, not formally SI.  You can put your car in one of the hangars, and I just sent the pilot’s information to you—he’s clean, flown for us for nearly twenty years, ex-Air Force.  Haven’t exactly read him in, but he knows when not to ask questions.  Just tell him the destination, he’ll find a quiet place to set down.”

“You’re sure?” Sam asks, and Tony jerks a thumb in Natasha’s direction.

“Ask her how much I tend to trust my employees,” he says pointedly, and she snorts.

“Pilot’s solid.  Leave here in thirty?”

Before Steve or Sam can so much as nod, Tony makes a shooing motion at them.  “Yes, go.  I’ll sort out the details and consolidate the intel for you.  It’ll be done and on your phones and tablets before you leave.”

Steve lingers for just a moment, trying to find _words_.  Objectively, he knows not to place all his faith in this trip, knows that the likelihood of success their first time out is slim to none and believing otherwise is a rookie mistake.  But try though he might, there’s a desperate, nascent hope blossoming in his chest, taking up space like it’s trying to crush his heart, and “thank you” is inadequate beyond measure.  He wants to say something, anything, about the night before, but everything turns into ash on his tongue when he tries.

Resting a hand over Steve’s, Tony squeezes reassuringly.  “I’ll hold the fort, be your op center.  Go, find whatever you can.”  Steve opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and Tony gives him a smile that holds a novel’s worth of subtext between its lines, none of which Steve knows how to read.  “JARVIS will still be looking, as will I; if something comes up, you’ll know.”

Assuming Steve isn’t simply imagining things, which is hardly out of the question, he thinks there’s as much unsaid on Tony’s end as there is on his own.  He also thinks they don’t have time for that conversation, because it won’t fit in half an hour.  So finally he says, “Thank you,” wishing he had something more, something _better_ , and turns his hand over to squeeze Tony’s in a gesture he hopes conveys at least part of what he doesn’t say aloud.

With a half-smile, Tony squeezes back, and Steve heads upstairs to get his things.  Twenty minutes later, they’re throwing their bags in the trunk of Natasha’s car; fifty-eight minutes later, they’re in the air.  It’s only then, when he’s on the jet and finally sitting down, poring over the information for the three thousandth time, that he realizes he never actually kissed Tony goodbye as he’d intended.

 

**vi. the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view**

_17 January 2015_ ; _Zagreb, Croatia_

Zagreb is a beautiful city—and, somewhat ironically, currently warmer than New York—one Steve would quite likely enjoy were it not for the anxiety and frustration churning in his stomach like burgeoning food poisoning.  They’ve been on the ground for just shy of two weeks, the living embodiment of “chasing ghosts”.  While each of them has run longer, harder ops, this one is undeniably different.  The strain leaves its marks on them all, in the way Natasha too casually scopes every location they approach; in the way Sam half-consciously reaches for the flight gear he isn’t wearing before aborting the gesture; in the way Steve is uncharacteristically terse with everyone from Natasha to their waiters.

It’s late morning on a Saturday, and they’re in an out-of-the-way cafe to regroup over coffee.  God knows they’re all sufficiently sleep-deprived, kept awake solely by virtue of the astoundingly uncomfortable steel patio furniture on the back veranda.  But they’re running out of options, something Steve knows in his bones the way old soldiers know when a storm is coming.  He doesn’t need anyone to tell him, but they’re collectively too stubborn to give up, and he isn’t sure whether to be grateful for his friends’ support or resentful that they keep letting him chase this shadow that remains inexorably just out of reach.

“I assume he has multiple forged passports,” Sam says, slowly like he’s thinking out loud, but Natasha nods in confirmation anyway.  “The borders around here are fluid enough that he could probably slip across unnoticed if he knew where to go—”  This time he deliberately looks over at Natasha, the only one among them who’s spent any significant amount of time on the ground in this region.  Again, she nods, and Steve can’t help thinking that while they’ve been trying to dress like inconspicuous (if suspiciously well-armed) tourists, anyone who’s _conscious_ overhearing their conversations could have them blown in a heartbeat.  “—but if he _does_ go through a checkpoint, or if we find the forger, we can probably track the chips.  Doesn’t Tony have a satellite up or something?”

“He does,” Natasha confirms.  Steve tries to feel bad for not contributing more to this conversation; mostly, he fails.  “The Soldier will have backstopped documents, possibly a full legend if he’s been able to get to either some old contacts or one of his safehouses, but they’ll be a last resort.”  She’s sifting through a bag of M&Ms roughly the size of your average brick, selecting only the red ones as though they hold some sort of chocolate magic eight ball.

Actually, at this point, Steve would be willing to give that some sincere consideration.

“You’re less conspicuous if you can get across the borders legally, though, aren’t you?”

“Chad.  Sudan,” is all Steve says, and Sam pauses, then nods.

“Point.”

Natasha huffs out something that might, to the overindulgent or inattentive, pass for a low, abbreviated laugh.  “And it depends on why you’re crossing borders to begin with.”  She takes another chocolate disc from the bag, chewing slowly before continuing, “Regardless of where his head is, the training’s been the consistent thing for the last seventy years.  We were trained—”  Pausing, she shakes her head after only a moment.  “—the English language does not have a word for how strongly they ingrain that into us: we never use ID unless it is absolutely unavoidable, do as little as possible that can be verified or documented.  If he’s here, he’s working off the only patterns he knows, which essentially comes down to KGB opsec for the truly paranoid.”

Sighing, Steve summarizes for her, “In other words, we’re back to square one.”  He tries to keep the cynicism, the exhausted frustration—or maybe it’s frustrated exhaustion, he can’t tell anymore—out of his voice, but even to his own ears he falls far short of the mark.

With a steady look that’s far more reasonable than Steve feels, Sam takes a sip of the horrible, canned coffee-and-caramel monstrosity he calls a drink that he’s been stocking up on for basically the entire trip.  Steve had tried one out of desperation; it was like drinking a can of maple syrup with fake sweetener.  “He’s still in Croatia,” he points out, altogether too calmly.

Technically speaking, he’s even right: Bucky hasn’t, as far as they can tell, left the country yet, though he’s probably not more than a day or two away from doing so.  The problem is, it’s the equivalent of saying there are fish in the sea—factually true, but essentially useless.

“Plus we’ll know if he sets one foot over the border,” Natasha reminds him.  “Clint knows far too many people in Serbia—half of them biblically, and don’t ever ask him about that one, you do not want to hear that story—and we stopped terrorists from blowing up most of Budapest once.”  She shrugs.  “They hate us for other reasons, but they owe us for that one.”

The smile she offers him is faint, but encouraging, and Steve feels a surreal sort of satisfaction that he’s one of the few people in the world who can read those minute expressions from the infamously opaque Black Widow.  If only knowing that could make the knot in his chest loosen its hold, because if he didn’t know it was medically impossible, he’d swear he was on the verge of an asthma attack.  That they’re as close as they are to reaching Bucky should be a comfort, however slight: he’s a trained operative who can be all but invisible when he wishes, no matter how out of his mind he might be, and yet they still have leads.  Instead, it’s the polar opposite, a sharp, biting frustration that only builds higher with each tantalizing, ephemeral moment when he thinks _this_ time they’ve done it, only to find Bucky just out of reach again.  He feels like they’re all embroiled in a game they can never win, with rules that have never been explained, a novice playing an Amar opening against a grandmaster with a Sicilian defense.  It’s exhausting in a way that a fifty-mile run can never be, and right now Steve has half a mind to run all the way back to New York, complete with swimming across the entire damn ocean.

Scrubbing his hands across his face, he braces his elbows on his knees.  “What would you do if you were in his shoes?” he asks Natasha.  Or, rather, he asks the abstract mosaic tile floor, but she gets it, and he’ll take any port in a storm at the moment.

Picking through a few more of the red pieces of candy, she answers at last, “Avoid Ukraine—and the Hungarians have never been exactly friendly to past assassins of the Nazi persuasion.”  Steve winces, biting back the protest of, “Bucky is _not_ a Nazi,” but she and Sam both have the grace to not comment.  “Bosnia’s out; far too many people who’d love nothing more than to hand him over to whatever’s left of Hydra.”  Sam’s StarkPad is lying open on the table, and she reaches out to tug it closer, fingers dancing fluently across the screen as her eyes scan the data faster than should be possible.  “But, given a reason, I’d stay put if I could.”  There’s a sharp twist to her mouth, the sort reflective more of discomfiting memory than anything else.  It’s an expression Steve’s seen in the mirror far too often lately, born of the experiences that leave nothing behind but a bad taste in your mouth and a crawling sensation across your skin.

Looking between them slowly, carefully, Sam finally asks, “What would be a reason to stay?”

“The op’s not over,” she answers bluntly.  “The mission’s incomplete, and you don’t return to base with a mission unfinished.  Ever.”

As he leans back in his chair, Steve chews on that for a moment, reaching over to blindly snag a couple M&Ms from the bag in Natasha’s hand.  “Hydra never kept all their eggs in one basket; that’s been proven pretty definitively at this point,” he says, “so if he’s staying here, he has to be looking for something—unfinished business, maybe, or…”

He trails off, but Natasha nods, finishing for him, “Or a guarantor of some sort against them, it’s not out of the question.”

“Hidden Hydra base?” Sam suggests, looking more alert even as the words leave his mouth.  Steve would protest on principle, except he could do with a target to hit or blow up—or both—too; anything is an improvement on sitting around grasping at straws.

So he just says, “Great,” with about as much emotion as if he’d been reading the phonebook.

“You say that now, but wait until he drags us through Romania,” Natasha says with a straight face.

Sam tilts his head at her.  “What’s wrong with Romania?”

“I’ll put it this way: you Americans name your states things like ‘Land of Enchantment’.  If Eastern Europe tried that, it’d be more like Bucharest, land of cheap beer and stray dogs. And hipsters.”

Sipping halfheartedly at his coffee, Steve chokes, almost spraying coffee out his nose as he tries to laugh and not spit it out at the same time.  It’s more startled incredulity than genuine humor, but it’s probably the first time he’s laughed at all since they left New York, and Natasha’s answering smile says that was exactly the point.

“Thank you,” he doesn’t say; her “you’re welcome” is equally silent.

Nudging his foot with hers before she pushes herself to her feet, she scoots her chair back in the same motion and pulls her phone from her pocket.  “I’ll call Tony,” she says, “ask if he can compile everything we’ve got on their ops out here and run comparisons.  If we’re lucky, there’ll be something on one of their bases here, or some personnel who haven’t gone completely underground.  If we’re _right_ ,” she adds, “and of this I’m at least fairly confident, the Soldier will make an attempt on at least one of them, and we might be able to beat him to it.”

Dropping a hand briefly on Steve’s shoulder as she passes, phone already to her ear, she steps farther out of earshot of the other patrons.  Steve sinks wearily against the back of his chair, feeling at least marginally better.  He’s a far cry from “good”, but an improvement is an improvement.

“Well, if all else fails, I hear the beach resorts are superb here,” Sam says with a grin, knocking Steve’s knee with his beneath the table.

It at least gets a smile out of Steve, however stilted; it feels rusty, halting, an ability deteriorated from disuse. But Sam being Sam, he doesn’t push, and if Steve had the cognitive capital to express it in words, he’d thank him.  They sit in silence as they wait for Natasha, but it’s easy between them even if Steve himself feels wound tighter than a guitar string, having to consciously stop himself from tapping a crazed, anxious rhythm against the floor with his foot.  Since they left, Natasha’s been running point on communications without ever having been asked, covering every call to Tony, every update and point of contact.  Steve thinks himself a coward for letting her do it, because he knows she’s doing it for his sake, but every time he tries to step forward, tries to dial the phone himself, something pulls him back.

He’s pulled too thin—butter stretched over too much bread, thank you, Bilbo Baggins—and this… _thing_ with Tony is as liable to break him apart as it is to steady him on his feet.  Much as he needs the latter, he’s too scared of risking the former, so he lets Natasha do the talking and tries to tell himself that this is the best thing for the operation and he has time for the personal issues later.  Much later.

“Aw, man,” Sam says with exaggerated disappointment as he pokes through the bag of M&Ms, breaking the silence and mercifully pulling Steve out of his own head.  “She always eats the best ones.”

Steve’s laugh sounds hollow and forced and fragile as avian bones, echoing in his ears like a ricochet in a canyon.  He only wishes it had anything to do with the M&Ms.

 

**vii. so hold my hand, consign me not to darkness**

_8 February 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

At the end of a long operation, you’re pretty much always tired; the difference between buoying satisfaction and crushing exhaustion is, usually, the measure of your success.

When they make it back to New York, after a month of chasing dead ends and cold leads and Bucky’s ghost through three European countries, they’re all pretty beaten.  Steve, though; Steve feels that inchoate hope he’d tried to suppress when they first left, except now it’s shattered into tiny bits, psychological shrapnel embedded in his heart, his mind.  He wonders if this is in any way similar to what Tony must have felt (must still feel).  There’s a bitter irony in being dead and brought back to life, only to still be haunted by and chasing specters from history.  If he didn’t think it might demolish the last fragment of self-control he has left, he’d laugh.

With Natasha at the wheel, the drive from the airfield to the Tower takes forty-two minutes instead of the seventy-five that comes of obeying speed limits.  She blames Eastern European culture, and no one asks for clarification, but there’s a reason why she tends to drive when speed is of the essence.  Tony’s waiting for them when she pulls into the garage.

“You,” he says, skipping the pleasantries and pointing at Sam, “floor 42.  Your biometrics are already in the system; go.”

Sam doesn’t even attempt pretense, just nods gratefully and shoulders his bag, mumbling something Steve thinks might have to do with bubble baths as he makes his way toward the elevator.  At least he’s still capable of walking in a straight line.

Hefting her own bag, Natasha gives Tony the short version of the update.  Or, rather, she tries to.  “I got your data,” he tells her before she’s gotten more than five words in.  “Unless you found the magic missing piece between now and nine hours ago, get some sleep.  Talk in the morning.”

She opens her mouth like she’s going to protest, then shuts it again with a tired nod.  “Thanks,” she says, and follows in Sam’s footsteps to her own floor.

Which leaves Steve alone with Tony again, a mirror of that first odd night spent on the sofa months ago.  For the first time since he boarded the plane in January, Steve lets the tension drain out of his body.  It leaves him with basically nothing, and he slumps against the workbench for a moment.

“You’ll find him,” Tony says into the silence, and Steve cringes physically away from the sentiment before he can stop himself.  Then Tony’s stepping into his personal space, so close Steve can’t really avoid his eyes, and repeats, with more conviction than Steve can comprehend, “ _We_ will find him.”

“I—”  Steve draws his hand across his face, grits his teeth so hard he can feel the muscles in his jaw jump.  “I know.  But I can’t—I need—”  Except he doesn’t know what he needs.

“To not be Captain America, beacon of hope, paragon of justice?” Tony suggests, and Steve should probably find it unsettling that his friend can read him that well.  Instead, it’s oddly comforting.

“Yeah,” Steve replies slowly, and if his smile comes faint and self-deprecating and too tight in his skin, at least it’s real.  “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

Tony shrugs, hands coming up to curl around Steve’s biceps as his thumbs skate across the fabric in gentle circles.  “Not really, no.  Then again, _I’m_ the paragon of wallowing in self-pity, so perhaps I’m kind of a terrible role model.”

“I want to—”  Steve cuts himself off, because the list of things he wants right now is too long to voice.  He wants to find Bucky, to not have died, to have never had their country go to war, to have one easy day.

“I know,” Tony says softly, and the sobering thing is that he does.  “Anything I can do to help?”

Surprised, Steve looks up, meeting Tony’s gaze fully for the first time since they got home.  “Yes,” he answers; and, before he can talk himself out of it, he leans forward and kisses Tony.  For one startled, terrifying second, there’s no reaction; then Tony’s kissing back, and it isn’t until Steve feels the relief flood through him that he’s aware of how acutely he’d expected to be pushed away.

“Tony,” he whispers into the kiss, hating the raw despair he can hear in his voice.

“Shh, it’s okay,” comes the answer, Tony pulling back just far enough to speak.  “It’s okay,” he repeats, “c’mere,” and tugs Steve back in.  His mouth is hot and willing and exactly perfect, and Steve stops fighting his body, lets himself melt into the kiss and drown in sensation.

Stumbling into the elevator, they barely make it into the penthouse bedroom, hands too desperate and feet too clumsy (though the latter is mostly Steve’s fault).  All the softness of their first night together is gone, deposed by pure lust and frenzied want, and Steve pushes Tony onto the bed, straddling his hips before he’s even had a chance to steady himself.  Leaning in, he kisses Tony hard enough to bruise and twists his hands in his shirt until his own knuckles are white and bloodless.  When Tony arches beneath him, it’s everything he didn’t know he needed.

“Come on, babe,” Tony says into the kiss, nails digging into Steve’s thighs.  The low growl Steve gives in answer surprises even himself; the words seep into his body, settling in his spine as heat pools in his groin.

“Can I?” he asks.  He isn’t even sure what he’s asking for, but maybe Tony is, because he nods.

“Whatever you need,” he replies.

In response, Steve surges forward, one hand pinning Tony’s shoulder to the mattress and the other wrapped around the nape of his neck.  He kisses Tony like he wants nothing more than to be engulfed, trying to lose himself, leave the rest of the world behind.  Everything is rough and messy and perfect, because gentle and slow is not what will help tonight; he doesn’t know how Tony knows, he’s just grateful that he does.

Hauling Tony upright again, he breaks the kiss long enough for both of them to lose their shirts before falling back in.  Steve wants to touch every inch of Tony, claim him, his thoughts monopolized by a streak of possessiveness in a way he’s never felt before.  While he doesn’t know what it means, right this moment he doesn’t care.  Holding Tony down, he kisses his way down to bite at the sensitive skin of his throat.  It’s harsher than intended, skin already purpling when he pulls away, but Tony doesn’t protest, moaning and raking his nails across Steve’s back in a way that makes his pulse spike.

Steve’s ostensibly the one in charge here, in part because Tony is handing him the control and all but serving himself up on a silver platter.  Yet he’s neither pliant nor soft, fingers tugging at Steve’s hair just enough to skate the border between pleasure and pain, kisses just as biting.  Steve’s hard enough for his pants to feel like an instrument of torture, and he rolls his hips against Tony’s in a frenzied quest for friction, for something deeper.

“Fuck,” Tony gasps when Steve leaves another bruise blossoming across his collarbone in the shape of his mouth.  “Come on, Steve.”

It’s all he says, but it’s all the encouragement Steve needs to slide down Tony’s body, pressing the heel of his hand against the bulge in Tony’s jeans and not bothering to suppress the grin when Tony snaps his hips up like he’s been shocked.  Breath coming faster, Tony lifts his head enough to glare at him, reaching down to pull Steve close again, his tongue licking into Steve’s mouth with a commensurate desperation that’s somehow validating.

The next minutes are a frenzy of hands and sloppy kisses as Steve pulls at the rest of their clothes.  Fine motor control decimated by the decrease in circulation, he fumbles at both their belts until Tony’s hands push his away, undoing buckles and zippers with a speed and agility that just makes Steve run hotter, his heart pounding a thunderous rhythm in his ears.  When they’re finally, finally naked, skin to skin, he rolls, pulling Tony on top of him with perhaps a little more force than necessary.  But Tony doesn’t seem the least bit upset, so Steve follows his lead, lets himself get lost in the raw physical pleasure of having Tony _there_ , skin hot and sliding over his everywhere they touch.

“Tony, I want—” he starts to say, again, but he never finishes the thought, because Tony’s kissing up his jaw, the coarse scratch of his beard a shock over Steve’s hypersensitive skin.

Licking at his earlobe—just a quick, wet flick of his tongue—Tony says, bluntly, “Fuck me.”

It’s as much a command as a plea, low and rough with want, and Steve closes his eyes, stilling his hands and trying to think of alien invasions or primordial slime or something equally un-sexy to keep from coming right there.  Tony’s as breathless as he is, words whispering across his skin like a feather driven by the gale of a hurricane.  They hadn’t gotten that far before, but Steve would be lying if he said he’d never considered it, never dreamed about taking Tony and fucking him right over the edge.

“Please,” is all he says, a little hoarsely.

He wants to laugh, because his attempt to _be_ in control has instead become defined by relinquishing power.  It’s just backwards enough to make sense in the train wreck of the last four months.  Naturally, it’s Tony, Iron Man with or without the suit, too bright and taking and giving as he chooses while Steve begs for whatever Tony wants to offer him.

Insomuch as he’s capable of complex thought, he expects the urge to fight back, the subconscious push for overt control.  It never comes.  All that follows is relief, cresting through him like sunlight over the horizon.  Lifting his head, he kisses Tony and repeats, “Please.”

It’s like a deep breath before a fall, the abandonment of a ledge and letting gravity do the work, and it’s easy—so easy—to let the days and months and strain and anxiety dissipate.  Tony becomes the center of his focus as the last month of unspoken words tighten around Steve’s neck like a hangman’s noose born of regret.  Navigating this, with Tony, might not be the easiest part of Steve’s life by a long measure; but here, like this, with blanket permission to touch, to taste, to slide into the heat of his body, Steve feels the ragged, piercing shards of his subconscious recede into something resembling a coherent shape.

It’s selfish; he doesn’t care about this, either.

The only thing he _does_ care about is Tony, with him and surrounding him and shielding him.  Steve wants to kiss the tiny, abbreviated gasps right out of his lungs, wants to smooth away the concentrated furrow of his brow; so he does. He lays a too-gentle kiss to Tony’s mouth, breathing in his sharp, surprised inhale and keeping the words hovering on his own tongue from spilling out.  He barely knows what he’d say; all he knows for certain is it would be too much—too open, too many, too vulnerable, too _everything_.  He doesn’t know what would happen if he voiced any of these thoughts; knows only the fear—however undeserved—of placing them at Tony’s feet to be trampled like so much dust.

So he keeps kissing Tony, holding onto him harder than necessary like he’s afraid the other man will vanish if he releases his grip.  Then Tony pulls him closer with a hand around the nape of his neck, and Steve goes willingly.  

“Tony,” he says, almost plaintive, pressing his mouth to the pulse point at Tony’s throat and feeling the fluttering heartbeat against his lips.

Steve wants to drown in him, arms tight for fear of—something.  Falling.  Flying away.  Losing (again).  Both.  All three.  He doesn’t know, but that doesn’t seem to matter, either.  Because for the first time since leaving a month ago, Steve’s brain shuts up, even if only for a moment.  Gone are the recriminations and regret and feckless anger, abrogated by sheer hedonistic pleasure.  He loses himself in Tony, lets himself fall into the moment, lets someone else bear the weight for just a little while.

Tony takes and gives with equal measure, granting Steve the space to fall and break apart and piecing him back together in the circle of his arms. Something—somewhere— inside Steve shatters, the final piece of misery that’s been lodged in his brain like broken glass and grit coming loose.  The sound he makes is more growl than  moan as he emancipates himself from that last fragment of hesitation.  He’s rough, nails digging into soft skin, teeth leaving bruises in their wake like temporary tattoos, hands holding Tony’s wrists to the bed as he takes all he can, all that’s being offered.  Beneath him, Tony’s back arches, pupils dark and blown as he absorbs every touch and falls over the edge with Steve’s name on his lips.  In the darkness, in the desperation, it sounds almost like a prayer.

Steve holds him close, riding out each wave and never tearing his eyes away from Tony’s face.  He doesn’t think he could look away even if he wanted to. He’s a drowning man clinging to a piece of floating wood, unsure and terrified this will be the last time he’ll ever have something to hold him up above the endless deep waters.  But at least for the space of this breath, that kiss, he isn’t thinking more than a minute ahead.

Tony’s grin is sharp and knowing and pleased, and he catches Steve’s mouth in a searing kiss.  Almost as though he’s suddenly been given permission, Steve stops holding back and gives all he’s been willing to give, thinking about giving, for what feels like ages.  It’s all fast and uncontrolled, and for the first time in too damn long Steve simply stops trying to _find_ that control, instead taking without remorse.

After dancing on the precipice for so long, it doesn’t take much, and he presses his face to the crook of Tony’s neck, whispering his name over and over like a litany against his skin as he follows Tony over that edge.  Just like falling, with the reassurance that there is something to catch you.  Just like waking up, only this time the world has not morphed into something brutally unrecognizable.

Only when his heartbeat slows does he become aware that he’s still holding on as though Tony’s a lifeboat in a storm, and he forces his hands open, forces himself to move.  But he doesn’t get far, half his body still draped over Tony’s, their legs intertwined and breaths loud in the empty room.  

“Fuck,” Tony finally says after a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and dragging the word out until it’s nearly reduced to a string of vowels.

Humming in agreement, Steve rests his palm on Tony’s chest, hand spanning the width of his ribs, and lets his eyes drag slowly across Tony’s body.  He reminds himself that, regardless of what they have or haven’t said, he’s allowed to look, to touch for as long as they’re like this, alone in the night with the world and their troubles locked on the other side of a door.  He thumbs gently at Tony’s right hip, where red-purple bruises blossom in the shape of Steve’s hands, mirrored on his other side.  Red, angry-looking scratches mar his chest and shoulders, bite marks laid over his collarbone like a map of a broken, dead-end road.  That same possessiveness courses through Steve again, this time blended with guilt as goosebumps break out across his skin.

“If you apologize, I am going to whack you over the head,” Tony mumbles a little drowsily.  Then he pauses, amends, “Once I can move again.”

Fingers still tracing the bruises, Steve says softly, “I thought you would hate being marked like this.”

He can feel Tony’s shrug, a noncommittal, abbreviated motion as he runs a hand lightly across Steve’s back.  “Usually not a fan.”  There’s the press of lips against his forehead.  “You, I don’t mind so much.”

Tucking his head against Tony’s shoulder, Steve wants to ask why but doesn’t: that’s part of a different conversation, and not one they’re equipped to have now.  “Can I—do you mind if stay?”

Tony huffs out a quiet laugh, and his voice is rife with self-satisfied amusement when he replies, “I’d like to see you try to get out of this bed without falling over.”

“Hey!” Steve protests, poking him in the ribs, but he can’t help smiling.  It feels like the first time he’s smiled in weeks.

“Let’s note that you didn’t correct me,” Tony says lazily, and Steve can hear the smug grin even if he can’t see it.

Smiling against Tony’s shoulder, Steve slides a few inches closer.  They’re both sticky, sweat drying tacky on their skin, and they should clean up; it shouldn’t feel comfortable, yet there they are.  Tony’s breathing eases back to normal, and Steve closes his eyes, lulled to sleep by the motion and the rhythm of Tony’s heartbeat.  The last thing he remembers is the gentle, almost hesitant press of Tony’s lips against his hairline.

\----------

_9 February 2015_

When Steve wakes, this time he finds the blinds drawn over the tinted windows, just enough light filtering in to tell him it’s later in the day than he usually gets up.  The space beside him is empty, fog-colored sheets as cold as the adjective when he runs his hand across the mattress, and he tries to swallow down the disappointment.  It isn’t as though Tony’s ever been much of a sleeper, he reminds himself, and it’s—he glances over his shoulder at the clock—well past eleven in the morning.  But knowing all of that makes waking up alone no easier.

“Good morning, Captain,” JARVIS says, and no offense to him, but Steve wonders if that ever gets less unnerving.  “Mr Stark has left coffee in the kitchen, and you are welcome to remain for as long as you wish.”

He isn’t sure if he finds that more comforting or less—at least he’s not being hauled out the door by Pepper or Happy—but he mumbles a thank you and flops back against the pillows.  He isn’t some naïve ingénue, and he knows that this isn’t…well, much of anything, really.  They’d slept together, gotten called out to find Bucky, and here they are a month later without so much as a “hey, how’s it going” in between.  They had seemed to be drifting toward something that could be real, and when they’d ended up in bed in January he wanted to believe—still wants to believe—this is more than just a quick fuck (there is nothing quick about them, not here) or some casual comfort.  But he doesn’t want to force this, force _Tony_ , into more than it is, and he has no idea how to broach the subject.  He knows Tony’s history as well as the next person capable of using Google, and he isn’t so self-absorbed as to automatically believe he’s the natural exception.  He’s made a fool of himself plenty of times since he first woke up, and while one more time will hardly make a difference, he doesn’t the have the energy for further heartbreak or disappointment, not now.

After an hour of lying there, the silence finally gets to him, and Steve hauls himself out of bed.  His gear from last night is gone (he assumes it’s in the laundry, but god only knows), replaced by a fresh t-shirt and pants folded in a neat stack at the foot of the bed.  He’s pretty sure he hadn’t left them in the penthouse, but he doesn’t have the mental capacity to overthink this, too.  He ignores the fact that he needs a shower—he still smells like sweat and sex, but he also smells like Tony—and swallows down last night’s memories as best he can.

Forgoing the coffee in Tony’s kitchen, he makes his way down to the communal floor.  Natasha is already there, wearing a t-shirt and yoga pants and sitting at the kitchen island poking at a tablet.  Sam’s beside her, engulfed in a bathrobe with the Avengers logo on the the front, his head resting on his folded arms on the granite like holding it up is too much effort.

“Morning,” Steve says, and Sam just waves one hand aimlessly.  “Bubble bath that good?”

“I fell asleep in the bathtub.  It was beautiful,” Sam replies with a yawn, and then he looks over at Steve.  “But maybe not as beautiful as someone else’s night.”

For her part, Natasha says nothing; if he didn’t know better, he’d think she was still absorbed in whatever’s on her tablet.  But he does know better, or at least he’s starting to, and he catches the twitch of her lips as she scans him from head to toe without so much as lifting her head.  Try though he might, Steve can’t quite help the way his face falls.

Clearing his throat, he picks up a mug.  “Coffee?”

“Wait, what happened?” Sam asks, alert now and pushing himself upright enough to brace his elbows on the counter, and Steve tries to shrug it off as he takes the chair Natasha pushes toward him with her toes.  She’s watching him now, carefully, in that steady way she only uses with people she likes.

“Nothing happened,” Steve says, sitting down and ignoring the look that passes between his friends.  “I need caffeine, and then we can move on to updating the files with Bucky’s trail, or lack thereof.”  He’s trying to sound normal, but there’s a mordant note gnawing at the edges of his tone, and he’s seriously contemplating if it’s possible to set that on fire.

“Oh, no, nuh-uh, don’t pull that strong, silent hero crap on me,” Sam says, kicking him a little too hard in the shin.  “Worked a year ago, doesn’t anymore.  I will counsel the shit out of you if you do.”

“Tony’s already added all we have.”  Natasha pushes her tablet at him, and she’s right: Steve had heard Tony say he’d already gotten their info when they got in, but he hadn’t realized it was already neatly filtered into folders and subfolders, fully indexed and cross-referenced.

For lack of any better options, he just stares at the screen.  “Oh.”

“Want me to kick his ass?”

“Sam!”  Steve tries for admonishing, significantly impaired by the mock-horrified laughter he can’t quite suppress.  “No one’s kicking anyone’s ass.  It just—”  And then he stops, unsure of how to continue.  It’s just not enough.  Or maybe it’s too much.  Whichever it is, they don’t have the time for him to explain.  Mostly because they’d have to wait for him to figure out _how_ to explain it, first.  “It’s complicated,” he finally finishes lamely.

For a few moments, no one says anything.  Then Natasha breaks the silence, pressing her knee against his.  “Perhaps,” she acknowledges, “but when has that ever made any of us give up?”

“Widow’s got a point,” Sam agrees.  “Helicarriers of Doom are also complicated.”

“Reindeer gods and their alien armies,” Natasha offers.

“Nazis with stupid faces.”

In spite of himself, Steve’s smiling into his coffee mug.  “Okay, okay, I get it,” he says, shaking his head.  “But this isn’t Nazis.  I can punch Nazis.”

“You can also punch Tony,” Sam points out cheerfully, and he doesn’t look the least bit sorry when Steve simply rolls his eyes.

“Hey.”  Natasha pokes him in the leg with her foot.  “Tony’s something else,” she says, and it suddenly occurs to Steve that he’s not sure when Tony and Nat had _become_ Tony and Nat, at least to each other.  “But so are you.  Give it time.”

“Yeah, time,” Steve says after a beat, trying not to think of how that always goes wrong, of how he always _loses_ time, whether it’s to the bottom of the ocean or his own fears.  Time has never been particularly kind to him, and he doesn’t think it has any reason to start now.

They sit drinking their coffee in silence, and Steve flicks through the files on the StarkPad, trying desperately to piece together _something_ coherent from the information.  He tries not to think about the weight of Tony in his arms, or the look on his face right before he comes with Steve inside him.  He just thinks about time, and wonders if he can make it work for him for once in his life.

 

**viii. would you leave me (if I told you what I’ve done)**

_12-14 February 2015_ ; _central Sokovia_

The universe evidently disapproves of Tony and Steve ever having half a chance to figure out what this thing is between them, because the day after Steve returns from Croatia they get that hit on Loki’s scepter they’ve been waiting for.  So the team departs for Sokovia, and from there things go downhill fast.  Ultron creates himself, cannibalizing JARVIS in the process; they destroy two floors of the Tower (the contractors love having the Stark account for exactly this reason); they all get their brains scrambled; they end up on the run (again, and this is really getting old); and they vaporize an entire city.

Finally, after three interminable days that feel like three centuries, Vision takes Ultron out and they start calling in backup.  The morning of the 12th, as soon as it’s light out, Tony, Rhodey, and Thor hit the ground alone.  Between armor and Norse demigod indestructibility, they’re the best equipped to find and handle anything Ultron might have left behind, but they find surprisingly little beyond faint traces of vibranium in the soil.

“Come on down, it’s clear,” Tony informs the others.

He, Rhodey, and Thor begin sifting through the debris left within the crater, on the off chance of finding survivors.  Fury dispatches field teams of agents into the city to initiate the long, arduous process of rescue and recovery.  The Red Cross is on scene within two hours, the Stark Relief Foundation less than an hour behind.  (Tony tells JARVIS to make a note to send Pepper something very expensive as soon as the current crisis passes.)  Most of the area around the crater itself is surprisingly intact, but rubble from the buildings that had been on the precipice as the city began to rise is scattered through the streets, along with chunks of the actual earth.  Just beyond the perimeter, they set up a makeshift hospital and a canteen.  Like most of the people present, the structure pulls double-duty as the staging area for local law enforcement coordinating their emergency response teams, and Fury and Maria run transport for the victims stable enough to make it to the nearest _actual_ hospital fifteen miles away.  Residents begin appearing, offering to help or searching for friends and family—in spite of their best efforts to prevent casualties, the death toll is in the sixties by noon and still climbing, leaving both the local doctors and SHIELD’s tasked with treatment as much as identification.

Everyone on the team is some measure of bruised and battered, and the normal comms chatter is curtailed by sheer exhaustion, limited to plans and tactics and organization.  The sole public statement comes during the press conference Maria hastily arranges late that morning: almost every neighboring country, plus the United States, Canada, most of the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and NATO are ready to send tactical support, so the Avengers make their appearance.  Ultimately, it boils down to, “The actual fighting is over, Ultron’s gone, you can stop planning to send troops, we’re tired of beating things up, thanks.”

Toward evening that first day, Steve and Tony find one another in the same search quadrant, clearing the streets and trying to salvage what they can.  They spend the better part of three hours working in relatively companionable silence.  Then they uncover the body of a boy, buried beneath debris from one of the fallen apartment buildings.  He can’t be older than five, and from the chest up he almost looks as though he’s sleeping.  Tony stands there staring for too long, until one of the medics moves to pick him up.

“No, I’ll take him,” he says abruptly, picking the child up as gently as if he’s made of so much already-shattered glass and giving him into the care of their acting coroner.

The bitter taste in his mouth refuses to go away, and he makes his way back to the site, sorting through the debris like it’s personally offended him.  He sees the concerned glances Steve shoots his way whenever he thinks Tony isn’t paying attention, but he ignores them.  He has to.  None of them can afford to crack, not now.

By the time nightfall comes around, they’re still at it.  Most of the team hasn’t slept for over three days, and the others—the humans who literally can’t run that long on nothing but air—have to be forcibly pulled away by their replacement shifts.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Tony mumbles under his breath, blasting a chunk of concrete with more force than is strictly necessary.

“What?” Steve asks from his left.

 _Damn that supersoldier hearing_ , he thinks.  He wants to say, “Nothing,” but there have been too many lies and unspoken truths to add one more.  So he repeats himself, and Steve pauses, looking up at him.

“I know,” he says with a sigh, then straightens, hands fisted into his lower back.  “You could have told us.”  It should sound like an accusation, an indictment; it doesn’t.  Somehow that just makes Tony feel worse.  “You could have told _me_ ,” he adds, more softly this time, and Tony looks away.

“And what would you—any of you—have said?” he asks just as softly.  When Steve doesn’t answer, he blows out a breath and returns to vaporizing concrete.  “Exactly.”

\----------

Come the 14th, they’re all running on fumes (Tony can’t remember the last time he’s spent this many consecutive days in the suit), but the city is beginning to look slightly less like a casualty of the apocalypse.  While they aren’t finding survivors anymore, they’re also finding fewer bodies, period.  He’s working with Thor, some of the SRF personnel, and a handful of the civilians they’d evacuated.  Around late morning, he takes a break long enough to down a bottle of water, and he sees one of the men—a local, young, with a healing scratch on his cheek—pluck a dusty-looking rose from the remains of a florist’s shop and offer it to one of the SRF women.  The brunette blinks at him in surprise, and he shrugs with a grin, still bright-eyed and hopeful while standing amidst the detritus.

“Happy Valentine’s Day?” he offers, accent thick and voice soft, and only then does Tony remember the holiday.  He’s seen them both floating around, watched them forge one of those bizarre friendships that arise between people who’ve survived incredible odds and are still alive to help in the aftermath.

Rolling her eyes, she laughs, but she takes the rose all the same, breaking off most of the stem so she can tuck the flower into her hair.  “Thank you,” she says, and they share a smile that leaves envy churning in Tony’s stomach before they go back to work.

“You Midgardians can find brightness even in chaos and disaster,” Thor says, coming up beside him just as he drops the faceplate, which is when Tony realizes he’s been staring.

He grits his teeth against all the things he can’t say, grateful for the shield of the armor.  “Just humans being silly,” he replies.  He’s aiming for light humor; he lands a few planets away in dark bitterness.

Turning to face him, Thor gives him a long look, a wealth of understanding in his eyes.  It’s easy to forget, with his proclivity for lightheartedness and ready smiles, that he is older than all of them by millennia, born before humans ever bothered to stare up at the stars and wonder what they meant.  Tony manages to not fidget, just barely—when a demigod looks at you like that, even when he's cloaked in dust and exhaustion, it seems they must have x-ray vision, and it’s still unnerving.

“Perhaps we all need a touch of silliness now and again.”

Not knowing how to answer that without sounding like an ungrateful douchebag, Tony shrugs one shoulder.  Then he adds, “You should call Jane if you get a chance, by the way.”

He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Thor recognizes the blatant topic change, but mercifully he doesn’t press.  “I shall,” he says.  “I would not wish to be hit by her vehicle again.”

That startles a laugh out of Tony, and he nods as sagely as the armor allows.  “Yes, that’d be unfortunate,” he agrees.

\----------

Later that day, Tony finally steps out of the suit for the first time since they left the Tower with Vision.  He isn’t sure if it’s guilt or masochism or anger that drives him on that of all days in search of the Maximoff twins: he’s half-afraid he’ll find them and tear them apart the way he can’t dispense with his past.  The moment he steps into Pietro’s room in the enormous medical tent, though, guilt takes precedence.  The grey of the room and the dim fluorescent lighting and the pale blue of the hospital gown make him look less alive than some of the corpses they’ve recovered.  Through the panic rising in his throat, Tony has to force himself to breathe as he falls back into the vision Wanda had given him that first day in Sokovia.  It’s another one dead, another face to line up in the night like a cabal of executioners, another name to add to the long list of graves that is Tony Stark’s legacy.

“He’s sleeping,” Wanda says, appearing behind him from seemingly out of nowhere.

“Jesus!”  He jumps, glaring at her over his shoulder and pretending his heartbeat isn’t stuttering in his chest like he’s just run a marathon.  “Has anyone ever told you you’re eerily quiet?” he asks rhetorically, looking back to the bed.  This time, at least, he can see the gentle rise and fall of Pietro’s chest as he breathes.

“Yes,” she replies, crossing the room to her brother’s bedside.

 _That was_ … _literal_ , Tony thinks, and considers leaving.  She isn’t the enemy, not any longer, but knowing that and understanding it are two very different things.  Bile rises in his throat as his stomach churns and the room spins with remembrance, and he sinks into a chair placed conveniently to his left, trying to make it look intentional.  Bracing his elbows on his knees, he draws his hands across his face, unsure of why he stays, or even why he’s there at all.

In spite of himself, his attention turns to Wanda, who’s watching Pietro with a soft, pleased smile as she smoothes his hair back from his forehead.

“He is dreaming,” she says as his eyelashes flutter.

“About what?” Tony asks before he can consider that it’s none of his business, that his selfish need to know there’s something he has not left shattered in his wake does not supersede privacy.

At first, Wanda doesn’t answer.  Then she says, into the silence, “You wish for forgiveness.”  Her eyes flash red, like blood and death and heralds of disaster, and Tony clenches his jaw so tightly he can almost feel his teeth crack.

“Don’t _do_ that, dammit!” he snaps, and it isn’t until the words have already left his mouth that he hears his own volume.  He takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath, and repeats, more quietly this time, “Don’t fucking do that anymore.”

Her expression softens into something apologetic; the fact that she does not actually apologize helps, in some warped way.  “I can only offer you mine—and his,” she tells him, as though Tony hadn’t just shouted at her, and he bites hard at the inside of his cheek to shut himself up.

“Why would you?” he asks at last, and it comes out imbued with far more honesty than he’d ever intended.

Again, she smiles, an expression serene and knowing and altogether too old in the youth of her face.  “You do not want it?”

Tony laughs harshly, mouth twisting in a bitter semblance of a smile.  “Do I have to give it back?”

She purses her lips, head tilted to the left as she looks at him.  “Would it make you feel better to know I do not give it easily?”

“We both know the answer to that, even without you in my head,” Tony says, but still he feels a knot come loose in his chest with some fucked-up form of relief.  He wants to laugh—only he could go seeking forgiveness and feel better for it when that forgiveness never comes—but if he does he’s afraid it’ll devolve into hysteria, and he isn’t at all certain he’d be able to stop.  “I forgive you, too,” he offers.

This time it’s her turn to laugh; unlike his, it holds actual humor.  She looks back down at Pietro, laugh lines fading to leave pride in her eyes and exhaustion on her face in their wake.  It strikes him then how _young_ they are, how they should probably be at university, enjoying that cusp of adulthood, not in the middle of a disaster zone as the experiments of a mad scientist turned into heroes.

“You are lying.”  It’s a statement, not a question, as she glances up at him.

“Maybe,” he concedes.

She runs her fingers through her brother’s hair again, and Tony ignores the tendrils of red eking out from beneath her fingertips.  “Then maybe we are both terrible liars,” she suggests.  “But you are better than I, and he is worse than us both.”  Sighing, she lowers herself into the chair by the bed, then looks over at Tony again.  “Do you know, he always dreamt of being a hero.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Tony replies, eyes unconsciously tracking the gunshot wounds he knows lie hidden beneath the blankets and hospital gown.

“It is better than being the villain,” she counters, drawing his attention back to her, “but in the end, it is all in the mind, no?”

“You would know that better than I do,” Tony says, but at the accusations are gone from his voice.  Pushing himself to his feet, he takes a step closer, covering Pietro’s unmoving hand with his own before his brain can fully process the movement.  “Thank you.”  He doesn’t know if he’s saying it to Pietro, or Wanda, or himself, or some combination thereof.  The room suddenly feels too hot, leaving his lungs wanting for oxygen with each breath.  Wanda doesn’t reply, or comment at all, and for that he’s thankful.

After a minute, he turns to leave.  Silence makes him think too much, which in turn renders the inside of his head even more of a mess than usual; and here, with them, he still feels like an intruder, the unwanted monster in the closet.  But when he reaches the foot of the bed, he pauses.  “If there’s anything you need, just find me,” he says, and Wanda nods, her smile tired but grateful and surprisingly sincere.

He slips out the half-open door, pulling it shut behind him as he turns left in search of something with which he can occupy himself.  “That was nice of you,” a voice says from behind him, and for the second time in less than twenty minutes he jumps, whirling around and reminding himself why it’s a bad idea to wander about while staring at the floor.  Steve is standing a few feet away to the right, leaning against a support pillar with his arms crossed, blue eyes thoughtful, and Tony briefly considers the futility of running.

Then he considers running anyway.

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” Steve hastens to add, “I just—I was going to go see how they were doing, and I overheard.”

“It’s fine,” Tony says on autopilot, and Steve narrows his eyes just a fraction.

“It’s not your fault he’s in there,” he points out quietly, and Tony flinches in spite of himself.

With a hollow laugh, he shakes his head.  “I didn’t pull the trigger,” he agrees scathingly, “but then again I never do.”

Now Steve just looks perplexed, frowning as he tries to parse that.  “You know Strucker was going to wreak havoc anyway, whether or not Ultron was in the picture.”

Tony’s jaw tries to make a break for the floor, and for a few seconds he just stares numbly at Steve.  “They didn’t tell you.”

“Who didn’t tell me what?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tony shakes his head.  “I need coffee for this,” he mutters, heading for the canteen.

Steve follows without being asked.  Tony has no idea whether that’s a good thing or not, since it means he can’t _not_ explain himself, and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment and recrimination in Steve’s eyes after he knows.  But once he has coffee in hand and Steve’s holding a cup of tea, he heads around the edge of the trailer, leaning back against the wall and studying the ground as he speaks.

“You know how they were orphaned, right?”

Steve nods, and Tony can _hear_ the “what does that have to do with anything?” as it manifests on his face.  “Apartment building was bombed.”

“Right,” Tony replies, then draws in a deep breath.  “Guess whose name was on the shells they used.”

Silence falls, weighed down by guilt and surprise and other emotions Tony doesn’t want to consider.  He’d think Steve had left if he couldn’t still see the soldier’s feet.  When he finally ventures a glance up, his eyes widen and he takes an involuntary step back: Steve looks as exhausted as the rest of them, sure, but there’s icy anger in eyes hard as glaciers, and for a moment Tony thinks he’s about to get decked, and deservedly so.

“Why are you—”  Steve stops himself mid-sentence, understanding dawning on his face as he lifts his free hand palm-out, placating.  “No, Tony, I’m sorry, I’m not—that wasn’t aimed at you.”  He takes a slow, careful step forward, catching Tony’s elbow in his hand when he doesn’t pull away.  “Stane, I assume?” he asks quietly.

At first Tony says nothing.  “I don’t know,” he finally replies.  “Officially we didn’t arm any of the sides in the post-Communist civil wars, but he and Howard might have brokered deals I never heard about.”

“Damn.  I wish he were alive, just so I could punch him in the face.”  Tony’s still staring at him with varying degrees of disbelief, and Steve’s expression softens further.  “Did you think I’d blame you?”

“They did,” Tony replies before he can check himself.  “ _I_ do.  Maybe you should.”

Shifting his hand upward from elbow to shoulder, Steve shakes his head.  “You are not to blame for the actions some jackass took in your name,” he says, unexpectedly vehement, “and if they thought _you_ hadn’t changed at all in the years since, I’m pretty sure Wanda wouldn’t have let you just walk out that door.”

Tony looks away again.  “He did those things without my knowledge.  That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have known,” he corrects, tone flat and level in a manner that can only be acquired through too much repetition.  “It was happening right under my nose in my own company, and I never looked up long enough to see it.  Millions of people died by weapons with my name on them because of it, and it’s sheer dumb luck I’ve never come across their families until now.

“And don’t say the thought never occurred to you,” he adds, even knowing he should stop digging this hole any deeper.  “I saw your face when I recognised Klause’s photo, remember?  Somewhere in your head, you believed I might have taken his business, been party to whatever he was doing.”

“No,” Steve snaps, fast enough to be reflexive, to silence even Tony’s doubt.  “You said you knew him, and I thought the people he killed would be another set of coffins for you to try to carry.  I thought you knew him because he was another of Stane’s black market deals, or would turn out to be, and I didn’t want that for you.”

Speechless, Tony simply stares until Steve sighs.  Before Tony can pull away or so much as process what’s happening, he finds himself pressed up against Steve’s side, trying not to spill hot coffee all over them both as he’s pulled into a hug he never wants to leave.

“You’re a good man,” Steve says, breath brushing warm across the shell of Tony’s ear.  “Maybe one of these days you’ll actually believe that.”

Swallowing hard, Tony bites his tongue; he doesn’t know what he’ll say if he opens his mouth, but he can almost guarantee he’ll regret whatever it is.  Or look like an idiot.  Or both.

“You should be angry,” he finally says, just barely managing to pull away.  Steve’s hand is still on his shoulder, but Tony lacks the willpower to shrug away that last grounding bit of human contact.  “You should be so fucking pissed at me right now, and you’re not.  What the fuck is _wrong with you_?”  He can hear the desperation in the rising pitch of his own voice, bordering on hysteria, and he doesn’t miss the odd looks some of the few midnight strays in and around the canteen send their way.  Steve, for his part, simply stares at him, his mouth set in a sad line.  It makes Tony want to run again, and had he the energy, he might try.

“Okay, I _am_ angry—is that what you want to hear?” Steve says, and the calm composure hurts worse and hits harder than amplified rage ever could.  Tony swallows around the lump in his throat, the litany of _I told you so_ echoing in his head.  But Steve takes another step forward, putting himself right back in Tony’s personal space before those thoughts can latch on, leaning down until Tony can’t avoid his gaze.  “I am angry,” he continues, “because you still think you are alone in this fight.  I’m pissed that you think your past, your mistakes, should be the rope we should hang you with, like the rest of us are all fucking saints and you’re the only pariah.”  He’s close enough that Tony’s certain Steve must be able to hear the sudden spike in his pulse, hear the way each word lodges in Tony’s chest like one of Clint’s arrows: one shot, one strike, over and over again.

“I am angry that, in spite of how much of this—”  He waves the hand holding his tea out toward the relief efforts still operating at full force in the city, almost spilling the liquid everywhere as he does.  “—is your doing, you still believe that everything you’ve ever done wrong is irredeemable.  And,” he says, even softer, “I am angry that you don’t trust me, not yet, even if I maybe don’t have any right to expect that you would.  But right now, I’m just tired.  And I— _we_ —just went through hell, thinking we wouldn’t live to see tomorrow, and that was three days ago and I don’t have the energy for this.

“You want me to blame you, to shout and scream?” he asks.  “I can’t do that, Tony.  Not now.”

Tony’s shaking now and can’t seem to stop, the coffee he hasn’t had a chance to drink spilling over his fingers as he half crushes the cheap plastic in his hand.  But Steve isn’t letting go, not yet.

It shouldn’t be enough, but it is.

“Right now,” Steve tells him, “I want to sleep for a few hours, or, barring that, at least not be vertical for a few hours, and it’s calmed down enough that we can.”

“But—” Tony begins, and then Steve’s words fully process, and he frowns.  “We?”

Quirking an eyebrow at him, Steve asks like he already knows the answer, “When’s the last time you slept?”

“Um.”

Steve’s smile is all exasperated fondness, in spite of everything.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he says as he turns, sliding his arm around Tony’s shoulders.  It’s hard to tell if he’s trying to keep Tony from running or falling down.  More likely than not, it’s probably a combination of both.

Out of words, or ways to express them, or really energy in general, Tony tosses his now useless cup at a recycling bin and lets himself be led to where the Helicarrier is awkwardly docked in a mildly convenient lake.  Granted, it takes up two-thirds of said lake and is a strong breeze away from inciting a flood, but what the hell.  Five minutes and thirty-two turns later, Tony’s not sure he’ll ever be able to find his way out again, and Steve stops them at the living quarters.

“You know where your room is?”

“I have a room?” Tony asks blankly, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he says, then tugs Tony five doors down the hall before all but shoving him into a tiny room.

Setting the tea on the small table beside the bed, he sits on the edge of the mattress and starts unlacing his boots.  They’ve all been in uniform, for sake of easy recognition, since all of this started—with the exception of Tony, since both the suit and the giant night light in his chest are pretty good giveaways.  Steve tosses the outer layer of his shirt over the back of a chair (sleeping in kevlar is a bitch, and a thing to be avoided when possible) as Tony toes his shoes off.  Then he finds himself being pulled onto the bed as Steve scoots back, sandwiching himself between Tony and the wall.

Before he can lose his nerve, or be seduced by the prospect of peace into shutting reality away in a box in his head, Tony pulls away just enough to be able to look Steve in the eye.  Given that the mattress is quite possibly smaller than those used to furnish university dorms and utterly unsuited to the build of two grown men—never mind a supersoldier—that doesn’t put much space between them.  Except if he’s going to get kicked out of bed, he’s not going out of his way to make it harder on himself.

“Tony?”  Steve sits up enough to prop his head on his hand, the low light turning his eyes the colour of cobalt.  Despite his own exhaustion, the cautious concern is spread across his face like paint on one of his canvasses, and Tony wants nothing more than to lose himself in that look.

Instead, he says, “I’m sorry.”

Steve’s expression turns bewildered, though no less concerned.  “For what?”  He frowns.  “Ultron?”

“No.  Well, yes,” Tony amends, “but no.  I’m sorry about the fight in the lab, hitting you with the glove.  I’m just…I’m sorry.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks up in the faintest of smiles, and he reaches over with his free hand to capture Tony’s.  “I seem to remember getting in a few good hits myself,” he points out, wry.  “Are you mad at me for that?”

Mutely, Tony shakes his head.

“Then why would I be mad at you?” Steve asks.  “We might all be great under pressure, but there’s no one on the team who doesn’t have a hot temper.  Works well in the field, less so when we’re fighting each other.”  He draws in a long breath, looks back up at Tony.  “If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry, for not trusting you.  Whatever Ultron turned into, I know better than anyone that’s not what you intended, and I should have realised you wouldn’t be doing it again unless you had a damn good reason.”

Tony looks away and sighs.  “Road to hell, right?  It’s not like I have the greatest track record on smart decisions.”

To his surprise, Steve just snorts derisively.  “Fuck that, none of us do.”

Tony blinks at him for a moment, then smiles—minuscule, but still touched with bright amusement—and says, “ _Language_.”

Steve barks out a laugh and punches him lightly in the arm.  “You are never gonna let that go, are you?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Tony lets himself be pulled back down as Steve drapes an arm across his torso (mostly, Tony suspects, to decrease the odds of him falling off the bed).

“Sleep,” Steve says softly, forehead pressed against Tony’s hair.  “Let yourself breathe for a minute.”  Tony feels the faintest brush of lips against the nape of his neck, and when Steve laces their fingers together, Tony doesn’t protest.

He thinks he’ll never be able to fall asleep, that the hamster wheel in his head will keep running the way it usually does.

He’s wrong.

 

**ix. when did it get so hard to breathe**

_25 February 2015_ ; _Daruvar, Croatia_

“ _Možete li mi pomoći_?”

Straightening, Bruce sets a sheaf of papers aside and nods, extending an arm to the young woman in front of him.  “ _Da, dođite sa mnom_ ,” he replies.

It’s at least half-true.  He can’t help her directly, but he can get her to someone who can, so he guides her over to one of the women who runs the clinic-slash-homeless shelter he’d accidentally ended up working in.  He’s always had an ear for languages, and he’s been particularly grateful for that affinity in the last several weeks of traversing countries he’s never been in for longer than a layover or a conference.  Croatian still feels awkward and unfamiliar on his tongue, but he’s comprehensible with the basics and knows how not to insult someone’s mother—or recognize when someone insults his.  That most of the country speaks English to one degree or another, the majority of them fluently, is a blessing.  So, for that matter, are the infrequent Russian lessons he’d been getting from Natasha before he left and—

He shuts that train of thought down hard, and it occurs to him for the umpteenth time that he really should be moving on.  He’d intended to stay for a night at most, get some sleep and keep going.  He _hadn’t_ taken into account the fact that he’s a doctor at heart, and the middle-aged gentleman who’d come in with an obviously broken arm had him up and requesting a medical kit before he’d fully processed his own actions.

At some point after Sokovia, he’d come back to himself to find the Quinjet on a trajectory to nowhere in particular with the fuel gauge rapidly approaching red.  Lacking any better options, he’d landed in a copse of trees somewhere in the middle of what he’d eventually learn was Croatia.  (He wasn’t much of a pilot, but thanks to the mercies of Stark Industries engineering, the jet all but landed itself.)  Knowing Tony well enough to be certain the team would find it at some point, he’d hoped the backup battery would maintain the cloaking tech long enough for him to get safely out of reach and quietly disappeared, crossing three cities in the space of two days.

It had been a few years since he’d been on the lam, but he’d reacclimatized to living under the radar with unsettling ease.  At its core, it’s simple enough: keep your head down, say as little as possible, be as close to invisible as you can manage, and never stop moving.  That last, in particular, is easier said than done.  Case in point, he’s now been at this shelter a full week longer than he’d planned.

In search of some quiet, perhaps to establish his next moves, he steps out the rear door.  The shelter backs up against a hill, which is probably a nice view in the summer but currently consists mostly of mud, desiccated grass, and some residual snow, and it’s usually peaceful to the point of being deserted. _A perfect place for a hit_ , he thinks, then shakes his head at himself; he’s been spending far too much time with field operatives.  About to lean up against the wall, he hears an odd, strangled sound from the other side of the dumpster, and when he peers around the edge he finds a guy who looks worse off than Bruce himself.  Given his alter ego, that’s saying something.

Again, his medical instincts take precedence, and he takes a slow step forward, lowering himself into a crouch as he does and keeping his hands loose and open on his knees.  The man has his back pressed up against the building, knees tight to his chest and framed by his elbows, with his hands curled around the back of his neck, unkempt dark hair hanging loose around his face.  He’s dressed either for the weather as it had been two months ago, or for invisibility, in cargo pants and an oversized shirt (maybe two) and coat, but a baseball cap Bruce presumes is his lies on the ground beside him.

His face is pale and bloodless—were he on his feet, Bruce’s first concern would be him passing out—blue eyes wide and panicked, gaze darting back and forth like a cornered animal, touching on everything but focussing on nothing.  His breathing comes in short, uneven gasps, and the look he sends in Bruce’s direction is somewhere between pleading and terrified.  After too many years’ experience, both as witness and patient, Bruce knows a panic attack (especially one amplified by paranoia) when he sees one, so he maintains a careful distance and restricts his motions to movements as small as possible.

“Hey,” he says in Croatian, voice low and even, “do you speak English?”

He repeats the question in French, Farsi, what he hopes is passably comprehensible Russian, and English.  The last two at least catch the stranger’s attention, so he crosses his fingers and goes with English.

“My name’s Mark,” he offers, knowing better than to bother with the useless advice of “just breathe” right this moment.  “I’m a doctor,” he continues, “and pretty much no one comes through here.  Do you know where you are?”  He cares less about the answer than he does about giving the other man something else to focus on, but he gets a nod all the same.  Or, he’s fairly certain it’s a nod; it could just as easily be shaking, but he runs with it.  “It’s February,” he says, “almost March; they tell me it’s supposed to be warmer than freezing relatively soon.”  He gets something that might be an attempt at amusement in the midst of the equally strained attempts at breathing, which is a good sign.  It’s not as though he has benzos to dispense—and he doubts they’d be well received right now even if he did.

“Focus on my voice,” he suggests, casual like it’s just occurred to him.  “You’re gonna be fine, even though I know that sounds like the stupidest thing anyone could say right now.”

The brunet somehow manages to look as unimpressed as Bruce would if their roles were reversed, but he tracks him with his gaze even though Bruce isn’t doing all that much moving.  The look in his eyes is rife with the kind of terror that sends a wave of empathy crashing through him.  Usually people fear the unknown, but not this man; he looks more afraid of himself, of what he thinks he knows is coming next, and that resonates a little too well, especially now.

“I need you to take a breath—just one.”  Slowly, he places his own hand flat against his sternum and draws in a deep breath to demonstrate.  It’s not that he doesn’t think this stranger can figure out how to perform an involuntary function, but he knows full well how easily the common, everyday details dissipate like so much mist when your body turns traitor.  “Like this.  You’re having a panic attack,” he explains, though he’d call it a safe bet that it’s as much panic as it is trauma or flashbacks.  Then he repeats, “Focus on my voice; all that noise in your head isn’t important right now, just let your body do the work.”

Beneath the fear, there’s a flash of “you have got to be kidding me,” but it draws attention to Bruce and not the fight for oxygen, so his goal is accomplished.  He offers a soft smile that he hopes is reassuring, keeping his own breathing slow and rhythmic, motions exaggerated.  For a few minutes he just talks—about the country, about that one time in India with the goat, non-specific observations about traveling in this area—interspersed with deliberately offhand reminders to breathe.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, but slowly, too slowly, his new companion stops fighting for each breath, the sheen of sweat across his pale skin and the trembling of his gloved hands the only lingering evidence.  His arms are resting on his knees now in an unconscious mirror of Bruce’s position, and Bruce carefully sits across from him on a vaguely dry patch of ground.  With his back against the chain link fence, there are a few inches of extra space between them.  He’s still close enough to see the dark stains on the stranger’s clothes—blood, he thinks, though he hopes it’s water, or oil, or really anything else at all—and the lines of tension radiating from every line of his body.  It’s the epitome of fight or flight, his body primed to run or defend himself at the drop of a hat.  Bruce isn’t sure of what it reminds him of more, his own never-ending hypervigilance when Ross had been on his heels, or the poised, ready caution of Clint or Natasha when they’re waiting for the go order.  Maybe it’s both.

“Is there something I can call you?” he asks, not bothering to ask for a name he knows he probably won’t get.

There’s a flash of hesitation; then, hoarse like he hasn’t spoken in months, he replies, “Roger.”  Another pause.  “You’re good at this,” he says, awkward in the manner of someone who’s spent too long on their own, unaccustomed to conversation and social niceties.

Bruce pretends he doesn’t notice, replying, “Had my fair share.  At some point, whether you’re alone or not, you either give up and let it drown you, or you find ways to at least make it survivable.”  The sharp look he gets in response tells him Roger noticed he hadn’t said “easier”.

Chewing on his lower lip, Roger’s gaze is back to bouncing off everything and nothing as though he expects the bogeyman to jump from behind a corner if he says the wrong thing.  “Does it always work?” he asks at last.

“Sometimes,” Bruce answers, not bothering to lie.

More hesitation.  “Does it work on anger?”

His voice is so soft the words are nearly lost beneath the faint susurration of the wind, but once the question registers Bruce has to fight to swallow the semi-hysterical laugh that threatens to break out.  To ask that of him of all people is…there isn’t a word to describe what that is.  But he knows any kind of laughter would be taken the wrong way, so he pushes it aside and replies, “Anger is a different thing.”  Roger looks away, but not before Bruce sees the resignation on his face, so he adds, “But it does, sometimes.  It’s like meditation—it works for some people, but it’s far from a ‘one size fits all’ solution.”

Still studiously avoiding his gaze, Roger’s next question is directed more toward the patch of grass at his feet than at Bruce.  “Can you show me?”

Again, Bruce thinks he really needs to move on, that he’s already been here too long, but he finds himself saying, “Yeah, I can show you some tricks that might help,” before he’s really aware he’s made the decision.  Something in this man’s body language, in the haunted look in his eyes, strikes a little too close to home.  Bruce can’t help but think there’s a much longer, more complicated story even than his own beneath the battered exhaustion, and he can’t bring himself to simply walk away.

There’s a flash of something like relief, mixed with gratitude, in Roger’s eyes; Bruce wonders but doesn’t ask about the carefully regulated facial expressions, thinking he made the right choice.  “Listen, can I get you something to eat first?  We’re just about to serve dinner, and either you can come in, or I can bring something out to you.  There’s also a bed for you if you want it.”

For a long moment Roger just looks at him, searching his face for something.  While Bruce doesn’t know if he finds it, he figures there must have been something, because Roger nods, cautiously.

“Okay,” he says, deliberate and halting like the word is one he’s just learned, and Bruce smiles.

“Okay.”

 

**x. ain’t got no gun, ain’t got no knife**

_3 March 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

The first time Tony goes in for a hearing, which is diplo-speak for “hostile interrogation”, it’s (unsurprisingly) to DC.  His first task is to convince the Office of the Director of National Intelligence they’re not all certifiably insane—which, maybe they are, but not in the way anyone’s implying.  His second is the National Security Council.  And until the morning of the flight, though at 0300h “morning” is generous, the rest of the team assumes they’re going with him.

“No point in all of us being fed to the wolves,” Tony says too cheerfully in the hallway as he makes for the SI helicopter waiting on the Tower’s open balcony-slash-helipad.  He’s in one of his tailored, five-figure, three-piece suits, black over a dark red silk shirt, with a leather folder tucked under his arm and a pair of sunglasses in his hand.  “The NSC might never let me leave, and then who’d protect the country?” he quips, and before anyone can so much as open their mouth to protest, he’s through the doors and on the chopper.

“Is it just me, or did Stark just volunteer to serve them his head on a silver platter?” Clint asks the room at the large.

“If he didn’t, we have bigger problems,” Rhodey says, “because then we’re all sharing the same hallucination.”

Blowing out a breath, Natasha shakes her head.  “Well, this isn’t going to make CSPAN, and no one will be able to get us any information for hours, so I vote we get some sleep while we can.”

To their credit, they all try, but five hours later they give up the pretense in favor of beating the crap out of the heavy bags in the gym—or, for some of them, out of each other.  Toward noon, Sam and Rhodey start calling some of their military contacts, while Natasha and Clint embark on fact-finding missions of their own.  Everyone wants a good word from Captain America, so Steve plays politics for once and begins combing through the stack of business cards he’d accumulated while he was living in DC.  Another two hours pass, leaving them with little of substantive value beyond one of Rhodey’s JCS staff contacts, and all she could report was, “They want someone to crucify.  I can hear them yelling, and they’re in a fucking SCIF.”

It’s hardly reassuring.

Lacking people to call, Thor spends a good deal of his time pacing and muttering imprecations under his breath.  No one has the heart or the energy to point out that he could probably call whoever the hell he wanted and have them drop whatever they were doing in a split second.

“Hey,” Clint says tiredly at one point, “you’re talking about the country that opened an investigation basically for treason based on a suspicious hug.”  His laugh is bleak.  “For us, this is an improvement.”

The look Thor gives him is flatly unconvinced.  “Didn’t the city wish to make you a monument after the Chitauri?” he points out.

“If the city offered them, they kind of automatically offered it to you, too,” Sam says ironically, “but yeah, what the hell happened to that?”

Dropping her phone with a clatter onto the coffee table, Natasha sinks back into her armchair and answers, “We asked them to dedicate it to the New York police and fire departments.”  She shrugs.  “Clint and I didn’t need to be any more ruined for covert ops than we already are, Bruce doesn’t want the attention, Tony doesn’t need more encouragement, I’m sure there’s already a couple statues of Steve around somewhere.”

“In hindsight,” Clint says, “if I’d known they’d railroad us like this, I’d have said the hell with it, make the damn statue.  At least we’d have it as leverage.”

Rhodey snorts.  “Hindsight’s—“

“A bitch,” the entire rest of the room says with him.  He makes a “my task is done” sort of gesture before sighing and picking his phone back up to punch in another number.

As the hours trickle by, none of them can raise Tony on the phone, and when he finally returns it’s 0400h the next day.  He _looks_ as close to crucified as you can get without the actual cross and the nails.  They’re all still awake, and when he sees them he just says, “You know, guys, it’s kind of dark outside and everything.”  He sounds weary and a little hoarse, the way you’d expect someone to sound after talking—shouting—for the better part of a day.

“It went that well?”

The sound Tony makes is a dismal parody of a laugh, and one Steve hopes he never has to hear again.  “Thor, my friend, just be glad you will never be dragged into US politics unless you kill like fifty people for kicks.  Maybe not even then.”  Shrugging out of his suit jacket and loosening his tie, he looks at the rest of them.  “Seriously, it went exactly like you’d expect, just without a literal firing squad.  And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I practically fell asleep flying back here and crashed the plane, so I’m going to go to bed for the next two days unless there’s some life-changing revelation I need to know about.  No?  Awesome.”

“Well then,” Sam says rhetorically after he’s gone.

“I will go next time—drop them before they even see me,” Pietro offers, and it’s hard to tell if he’s kidding (he’s probably not).

Bruce snorts.  “They keep this up, I’ll help you.”  Given that he’s only _just_ returned to the Tower from his self-imposed, post-Sokovia exile, if everyone in the room feels their eyebrows hit the ceiling, no one is stupid enough to mention it.

Less than two minutes later, Steve slips away.  He knows this team well enough to know it probably doesn’t go unnoticed, but it does go unremarked, and he’ll take whatever reprieve he can get.  When the elevator opens onto the penthouse foyer, Steve supposes it’s a good sign Tony hasn’t locked the floor down entirely, but he knocks on one of the pillars by the entryway all the same.

“Tony?”

“Back here,” comes the faint response, and Steve makes his way through to the bedroom.  Tony’s stepping out of the bathroom, shirtless, a pair of worn sweats slung low on his hips, with a towel around his neck and his hair still wet.

Steve says the first thing that comes to mind: “I think you just broke a world record for the fastest shower in history.”

Tony huffs out a half-laugh, whacks him with the end of the towel.  “You come up here just to be a smartass?”

Dropping onto the edge of the bed and sinking into the down comforter, Steve shrugs, offers him a grin.  “No, that’s just a perk.”  More seriously, he asks, “You doing okay?”  He’s not holding his breath that he’ll get a sincere answer, but he’s slowly learning there’s no such thing as too many reminders that they actually do give a damn.

With a boneless flop that lands him on the bed beside Steve, Tony makes an equivocating gesture with one hand.  “Long fucking day, too many questions, too many idiots trying to put words in my mouth, you know the drill.”

Steve leans back, stretching out on his side and propping his head on his hand.  “You didn’t have to go in solo, you know.  We’d have come down even if we just ended up spending the day at the airstrip.”

Tony’s answering smile is a little crooked, and he turns his head a fraction to meet Steve’s eyes.  “Like you don’t have better things to do.”

“We don’t,” Steve points out patiently.  “It’s our job, too.  You’re good, but even you couldn’t have— _can’t_ make that much of a catastrophe in the space of a day on your own.”

Tony’s expression says, “wanna bet?” but all he says aloud is, “Maybe not, but I’m the only one they can blame without looking like ungrateful, ill-tempered children.”  Then he yawns so widely it cracks his jaw, and Steve sighs.

Pushing himself upright, he says, “I’ll stop keeping you up before you fall asleep like that.”

With a wry smile, Tony rolls his eyes.  “I’ve woken up in far worse positions.”  He looks up at Steve, almost pensive, and pauses; then, “Have _you_ gotten any sleep since I left?” Steve’s silence is answer enough, and Tony rolls his eyes again.  “And you call _me_ a stubborn idiot,” he says accusingly, but his smile morphs into something warm and soft as he holds out a hand.  “Come to bed.”

Without caffeine, Steve knows they’re just shy of the point where Tony stops making sense to anyone but himself—no matter what he’d have them believe, he hardly got a good night’s rest before the trip—so he doesn’t argue.  Nine hours later, he wakes to the unusual sight of Tony still in bed, and he wonders exactly how bad things were.  Just as rapidly, he also decides this isn’t one of the times that merits him pushing for an answer.

 

**xi. a promise out of sight (there’s nothing here for you tonight)**

_12 March 2015_ ; _Langley, Virginia_

“We seem to be skipping right over the part where I already _have_ a job.”

Sharon Carter’s standing in the parking garage at CIA headquarters, leaning against the back of a standard government-issue black Suburban with her arms crossed and an impassive expression on her face.  She’s almost succeeding at the whole determined disinterest thing, too, except for a minuscule twitch of her lips.

“Yes.  We have a better one.”

Natasha’s on the far side of a white Lamborghini convertible they’d temporarily liberated from Tony’s garage (there’s already a pink Post-It stuck to the dashboard, “IOU” scrawled above a drawing of a cartoonish spider).  She has her elbows braced casually atop the trunk, and Maria’s standing to her left, hip cocked against the side of the car.  There’s not a little “how the hell did you get _in_ this garage” in the slight quirk of Sharon’s eyebrows, but she knows them, which means she knows better than to ask.  In their business, plausible deniability is a beautiful thing.

Without so much as a blink, Maria adds, “Better health insurance, too.  Plus it never gets boring—you can thank Rogers for that.”

Exasperation creeping into the edges of her tone, Sharon says a little mournfully, “I said I was done with super secret superhero shit.”

“Now that’s a good tongue twister,” Maria says conversationally.

“Say that five times fast,” Natasha agrees, fighting back a grin with all the skill of a lifetime of training.  “But it’s also a lie.”

“Look,” Sharon says with a sigh, “I’ve got four new agents that I shouldn’t even be mentioning to you, and—”

“We know,” Maria interrupts, less out of rudeness and more in the interest of saving them all time they can’t spare.

The other woman raises an eyebrow, shifting her weight, and Natasha catalogues her movement as she does, thinking how alien it must feel to go (mostly) unarmed without a badge after so many years as a SHIELD agent.  Working for an intelligence agency run by an international entity had its downsides, but having no official “domestic” soil to restrict your operational capacity was not one of them.  And yet, though Sharon’s been with the Agency less than a year, her experience as a field operative for SHIELD had cut her required time at the Farm by almost seventy-five percent.  She’s turned into a damn good case officer with a rapidly growing reputation for her uncanny ability to sway foreign assets and is close close to breaking the record for the most agents recruited in six months.  This comes as a surprise to exactly none of her former colleagues.  The CIA will hate them for stealing her away (or, rather, stealing her back), but then again the CIA kind of already hates them, so it’s hardly a deciding factor.

Without answering the unspoken question of how much illegal hacking they’d had to do in order to obtain her operational information, Maria continues, “We’re trying to build something, put it back together—something I think you believed in, or you wouldn’t have faced off with Hydra in the ops center.”

“Come back without too much protest and we might even forgive you for turning Agency,” Natasha adds, completely deadpan.

“Well…”  Maria stretches the word out, extending its syllables, and Natasha shrugs one shoulder carelessly.

“I did say ‘maybe’.”

“Okay,” Maria concedes with a tip of her head and a conspiratorial glint in her eye meant for Natasha alone, “maybe.”

Sharon’s staring at them, as stunned as she is bemused.  “I’m being hazed again, aren’t I?” she says to the empty air.

Smirking, because that’s as good as an outright yes, Natasha pushes herself upright and bumps Maria’s hip with her own to get her moving around to the other side of the car.  “See you Monday,” she says brightly as she starts the engine, and Maria waves, hopping over the passenger side door instead of opening it.

“I can’t quit that fast, these things take paperwork,” Sharon points out, gesturing back at the building behind them, but she’s grinning, with a light in her eyes Natasha knows all too well. There’s doing a job; there’s being good at your job; and then there’s _enjoying_ it, with the security of knowing you’re where you’re supposed to be.  If she hadn’t already known they’d gotten their agent back, she would now.

Sinking into the leather seat with a pleased sigh, Maria counters, “It’s all signed and waiting on your desk.”  Sharon arches an eyebrow in answer, and Maria snorts.  “Oh, come on, we knew you’d say yes, and Nat could have forged your signature when Fury was in diapers.  You’re easy, Carter—you’re too much like your aunt in your loyalty.”

Sharon flips her off.  “Low blow, Hill, I hate you both.”  She’s just shy of yelling to be heard over the roar as Natasha deliberately guns the engine, but the laugh in her voice is audible even so.

They make it through the gates and onto the main road before either one of them cracks, and Maria’s grin is brilliant and just a touch smug.  “You owe me dinner, Romanova,” she says, the way she never would in the field, and reaches over to punch Natasha’s shoulder without looking.

“Pfft, no I don’t,” Natasha scoffs.  “You said it’d take ten minutes.”

For now, she ignores the steadying effect Maria’s choice of name has—always has had.  “I’ve learned to answer to far weirder things than ‘Romanoff’,” she’d once explained when Maria asked, “and correcting people just got old, but I’m still too Russian to think of myself as anything other than ‘Romanova’.”   _Or Shostakova_ , she’d thought but hadn’t said.  Since then, the other woman had made a point of calling her Romanova when she could, a quiet acknowledgement of what she’d given, of who she was.

“Which it did!”

“The five minutes we spent waiting in the garage do _not_ count,” Natasha shoots back, “and more to the point, you know it.”

Maria’s grin doesn’t falter.  “Someone’s gotta keep you honest.”

“Have you _seen_ my job title?  Last I checked it said ‘agent’, not ‘lawyer’.”  She pauses.  “Bad example.”

Cackling delightedly, Maria shakes her head, reaching for the travel mug in one of the centre console cup holders, and her fingers brush Natasha’s where she has a hand on the gearshift. “You would make a _terrible_ lawyer,” she declares.

“And _you_ would make a terrible motivational speaker,” Natasha retorts, returning the other woman’s grin full force.

Just barely avoiding spitting coffee all over the place, Maria rolls her eyes and refuses to comment.  “She didn’t say a word about us being raked over the coals,” she says after a moment, and Natasha glances over at her.

“Are you surprised?” she asks.

“Not in the slightest,” Maria answers.  “It’s just nice to know we made the right the call.”

\----------

 _14 March 2015_ ; _Washington, DC_

By the time the afternoon light begins to wane, Sharon’s apartment is full of blank white walls, stacks of boxes, seven exhausted women, two bags of potato chips, and too many empty bottles of expensive wine.

“This is good,” Sharon observes from her position on the floor, turning the current open bottle around to read the label.

Smirking as she takes a sip from her own glass, Pepper says, “It’s a Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Cuvee Cathlin, courtesy of Tony.”  (In spite of the fact that it’s their fifth bottle, her pronunciation remains perfect.)

Having arrived in the capital the previous day for an SI business meeting, the CEO is now sprawled in one corner of the black sofa.  In denim shorts and a dust-smudged green shirt, Manolo flats lost somewhere between their third and fourth bottles, she looks like she hasn’t a care in the world and bears next to no resemblance to her job title.  She’d bribed Betty Ross, Jane, Darcy, and Carol Danvers—who’s been back on Earth since Ultron, supplementing the dearth of instructors available for the New Avengers Academy—to join her in packing up Sharon’s apartment, and they’d made fast work of the entire process.

Accepting the bottle from Sharon, Betty lifts an eyebrow and asks, “Does Tony know he’s made this gracious gesture?” as she tops off her glass.

Pepper shrugs laconically.  “It’s Stark property, I’m the SI CEO.  Therefore, it’s mine, too.”

With a knowing laugh, Maria salutes her with her wineglass from the other side of the couch.  “Which means no.”

“I like how you think,” Darcy says with a broad grin, mirroring Maria’s gesture and leaning back against one of the myriad boxes.  Her t-shirt blends almost perfectly with the cardboard, an effect made weirder by their various levels of intoxication.

“I don’t even wanna know the price,” Sharon declares, squinting at her glass.  After a moment, she shrugs one shoulder as though she’s come to some conclusion in an argument with herself and takes another sip.

From her position squashed between Pepper and Maria on the couch, Natasha nudges one of the empty bottles with her toes.  “Don’t ask, don’t care,” she says blithely, to a chorus of agreement.

“What’s the point of working for a billionaire if you can’t reap the benefits?” Maria points out.

She rearranges herself a little, angling her body so Natasha can lean closer without needing a contortionist’s spine.  Natasha blames the alcohol for the heat rising in her cheeks, and gravity for taking advantage of Maria’s new, convenient position.

“I still can’t believe this.  I’m actually going to work for SHIELD. _Again_ ,” Sharon says plaintively, propping her head on top of a box and staring at the ceiling beseechingly.  “It’s like going back to some really weird cheating boyfriend.”

“Cheating _Nazi_ boyfriend,” Jane points out helpfully; Sharon just groans.

“If it makes you feel any better, at least the healthcare coverage is to die for,” Carol says, leaning over to snag the open bottle from Betty as she does.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?”

Pepper shoots her a look without moving her head, which ultimately means she’s staring down her nose at Sharon, a little cross-eyed.  “We’re women.  Working in the US.”

“…Point.”  For a few moments, there’s just silence, an appreciation of fine wine and a rare chance to relax without being bombarded by testosterone.  Then Sharon says, “You know, it only took me four hours to pack everything.  That’s pathetic.”

Maria snorts.  “You had seven people to do it in four hours,” she counters.  “I left SHIELD with one box, a stapler, and a bag of coffee.  Now _that’s_ pathetic.”

“Was it that special Ethiopian blend Fury treats like a state secret?” Natasha asks.  When she gets a nod, she twists just enough to clink their glasses together.  “Nice.”

“I had a van of RadioShack equipment,” Jane offers.  Of all of them, she is perhaps the closest to drunk—she can drink with the best of them, but she’s paradoxically something of a lightweight, which Natasha can’t help but find a little adorable.

“Leaving her mother’s apartment wasn’t much of an improvement,” Darcy supplies, ducking the cork Jane tosses at her head (even though she misses by a mile).

“A giant bunny,” Pepper counters, and even though she hadn’t exactly moved out with it, everyone winces in sympathy.  They’ve all seen it; however good the intentions, that was _not_ Tony’s best moment.

“You win,” Betty says with a grin.

“So…what you’re saying,” Sharon continues slowly, gesticulating with the hand holding her glass and managing not to spill anything only by virtue of luck and honed reflexes, “is it’s not pathetic, just part of the job?”  She gets a collective nod in response, which she follows up by tossing a potato chip at Maria’s head.  Even when farther toward “hammered” than “tipsy” on the scale of drunkenness, her aim, unlike Jane’s, is spot-on.  “I am so happy I quit my job for this.”  Pointing an accusatory finger—it’s aimed mostly at the ceiling, but the general sentiment stands—she adds, “If any of you turn out to be part of a super-secret organization that has been silently infiltrating various governments so it can take over the world with one giant, terrible master plan, I swear to god I will beat you to death with Maria’s stapler.”

Maria mock-glares at her from beneath the brim of her baseball cap.  “Hey, keep your drunk hands off my stapler, Carter, I worked my ass off for that.”

Head tipping back just enough to see Maria’s face, Natasha informs her somberly, “That’s just sad, Hill.”

“Right, like you didn’t steal Pierce’s paperweight.”

“I have the right to an attorney,” Natasha says loftily.

“Guys, I’m serious,” Sharon protests, and Betty, who’s been silently but not at all subtly laughing at all of them, looks over at her.

“No hidden agendas.”  She pauses, amends, “Well, none that involve taking over the world.”

“We’re too busy to take over the world,” Pepper agrees with a sage nod.

“And the men wouldn’t know what to do with it,” Carol chimes in, turning the conversation into a kind of strange round robin.

“They’d hand it over to us and expect us to fix it,” Pepper finishes for her, and then she laughs.  “Or maybe just twelve percent of it.”

Sharon smiles reflexively, her expression distracted as she stares at the ceiling.  “This is good, right?” she asks, suddenly sounding far more sober than she had a moment ago.

By the look everyone else gives in answer, Natasha isn’t the only one who knows exactly what she means, who understands that at its heart the question has next to nothing to do with health insurance or possessions or job titles.  She had asked herself that same question, over and over again: first, when she sat in a SHIELD interrogation room, handing the KGB over and trading her loyalty like defection was a game of poker; again, when she’d put on a different uniform and felt the weight of the A on her chest like that damned scarlet letter, a responsibility too great for an assassin-turned-agent; yet again when the agency to which she’d sworn her alliance crashed around her in a rain of glass and concrete and fire.  She still asks it of herself sometimes if her go bag hasn’t left the back of her closet in weeks, in the dead of night when her sins line up in the dark like a firing squad, silent sentinels waiting and ready to pass judgement.

So she answers, quietly, “Yes, it’s good,” and even though she’s mostly answering Sharon, she knows she’s affirming something for every single one of them in that room.  Maria nudges her arm lightly against Natasha’s shoulder, silent concurrence, and the agent lets herself acknowledge—or rather, believe—the spark of hope that ignites in the wake of that motion.

Blowing out a breath, Sharon nods once, decisively.  “Okay,” she says, “good.  Then someone needs to take me to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, because I just realized today that I only own beige towels, and I will _not_ be that woman.”

The mood of the room shifts away from its momentary sobriety, and Carol replies, deadpan, “If you have a couple pieces of clothing that aren’t black, and a set of sheets that aren’t white, you’re not entirely past saving.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Maria counters.

Sharon pauses, probably to run inventory in her head.  “Do scrubs count?” she asks at last.  When Jane gives her an odd look, she just shrugs.  “What, I was a doctor!  And not just a fake one to be Rogers’ bodyguard, and for now we’re gonna ignore the utter absurdity of that statement.”

“That’s it, we’re taking you shopping,” Pepper declares.

Which sounds like a fantastic idea, except no one moves.  Finally Betty adds, “Tomorrow.  You know, since we already have to haul this stuff back to Manhattan; no point in buying anything else here.”

Sharon tilts her head to look at the other woman and grins, lifting her wineglass.  “You,” she pronounces like it’s a royal proclamation, “should be in strategic planning.”

“You say that like molecular biology is all spontaneity,” Betty protests, feigning insult, and Maria shrugs the shoulder not pinned under Natasha.

“You have to admit it’s slightly less spontaneous than, say, a firefight.”

With a theatrical sigh, Betty shakes her head.  “Scientists are so misunderstood.”

Without moving, Jane says, “Amen,” as Maria points out, “Hey, I’m a scientist by training, too.”

“Yeah, and when’s the last time _you_ ran so much as a PCR?”

“The other day!”

“Sure you did.”

“I think by this discussion alone you’ve proved your point,” Darcy observes drily.

Natasha considers jumping in but doesn’t, choosing instead to enjoy the moment.  It’s only in the last handful of years—since the Avengers first became a team, really—that she’s had this kind of friendship with anyone.  Before that, people who weren’t Clint or Coulson were targets, associates, competition, independent of gender.  Red Room had trained her that way, and it’s a hard habit to break, especially when she doesn’t feel all that inclined to put in any effort.  In espionage, you either have friends or interests; a very rare few would ever have the luxury of both, and none of them worked for Russia.  She had been taught never to relax around people, and sometimes she wonders if she’s slipping, if her tradecraft is trickling away from her in barely noticeable increments each time she sits in the common room at the Tower and lets herself get lost in a book or a movie, every time she drops her guard this way.  Then she gets back in the field, where that doubt fades like so much invisible ink; and if she’s still careful with her trust, she does at least _have_ people to trust.

It’s a nice change, though she’d never admit it aloud.

There comes a knock at the door, and in the space of a second Natasha, Maria, Carol, and Sharon are upright and alert as though a switch has been flipped and they’re suddenly dead sober.  Jane blinks at them like they’re a Cirque du Soleil troupe.

“It’s like a magic trick,” Darcy says wonderingly, and Pepper laughs.

“You expecting company?” Natasha asks.

“Nope,” Sharon answers, pushing herself to her feet and making her way to the front door.

When she opens it, a brunet a few inches taller than she is, wearing an expensive-looking suit, stands on the other side.  “Ms Carter?” he inquires.

“Who’s asking?”

“Eli Lovano,” the man replies.  “I have a delivery for you, I just need you to sign for it.”

Sharon pauses, but then he holds out a box of black lacquered wood roughly the length of his forearm, and whatever she sees stops her protest before it begins.  “Thanks,” she says, signing, and he nods as she shuts the door and heads back to her previous spot on the floor.

“Nice box?” Betty offers, and she’s not wrong: it’s sleek and thin, barely two inches thick, with the Avengers logo in gold-outlined red on one side, Sharon’s initials in silver on the other.  Her address is written on the tag attached to the lock (which looks biometric), and Natasha would be willing to bet the tag itself is solid gold and engraved, or something equally extravagant.

Pressing her thumb to the tiny digital pad, Sharon cracks open the lid, then stares.  “What.”

“Tell me it’s not a bomb,” Maria says, only half-kidding.

“It’s not a bomb,” Sharon replies obediently, and a little dazedly, turning the box to show them its contents.

“Whoa,” Carol says with a low whistle.

There are six throwing knives seated in moulded foam, sheathed in low-profile leather-and-carbon-fiber wrist braces of three each.  In matte black carbon steel with a full tang, the hilt is designed to allow the blades to be wielded like extended brass knuckles.  Natasha reaches for one before she’s conscious of the movement, then catches herself in time to shoot a questioning look at Sharon, who nods and makes a “be my guest” wave at the box.  Never one to pass up new tech, Natasha slides one from its sheath as Sharon does the same, and despite all the weaponry she’s seen in her overly long career, Natasha is impressed.  They’re light, but not so light that gravity or average wind speed can disrupt the trajectory of a good throw; they’re also perfectly balanced, the blade just below the hilt resting on Natasha’s finger, steady as a level.

“Holy shit,” Sharon says, half to herself as Maria steals the knife from Natasha and Carol reaches for one of the ones remaining in the box.  “Oh, I can’t wait to kill something with these.” Then she pauses.  “Okay, I’m blaming that comment on the alcohol.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Natasha replies with a knowing grin.

Setting aside her wineglass, Darcy scoots closer to peer over Carol’s shoulder.  “Those are—”  She stops midsentence, seems to amend whatever she’d been going to say.  “—so _not_ shiny.”  Pointing in Sharon’s direction, she adds, “You are so teaching me how to use these.”

Grinning brightly at her, Sharon nods.  “Deal,” she replies, then glances back at the box.  “Who the hell would send me these anyway?”

“Stark,” the rest of the room says in unison, and she looks at each of them in turn with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, I can’t tell which is creepier—what you just did, or the fact that he knows where I live.”

Pepper shrugs.  “It’s Tony,” she says like that explains everything.

“You say that like it’s an explanation.”

“It is,” the rest of them say, and they’re beginning to sound like a Greek chorus, only with less death (so far).

“Yeah, okay, stop doing that.”

Pepper laughs, holding out a still perfectly manicured hand for Sharon’s wineglass and topping it off.  “You get used to it,” she says sardonically.

“Yeah, sure you do,” Sharon replies, sliding the knife back into the box along with the ones Natasha and Carol hand back to her.

Except the thing is, you really do.  Ten years ago, that would have been a sign of apocalyptic failure.  Now, it’s an odd comfort in its own way.  Natasha may not be quite sure what to make of that, but she isn’t turning it away, either.

 

**xii. you don’t have to be a ghost, here amongst the living**

_18-19 March 2015_ ; _the Barton farm—location: classified_

The second hearing comes two weeks after the first, this time before the Senate.  First it’s the Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Foreign Affairs committees, which are classified, followed by the investigatory hearing for the Senate at large, which is decidedly _not_ classified.  Most of the team had accepted Laura and Clint’s invitation to come out for part of the week, and if Steve spends a great deal of time chopping firewood (or just ripping it apart, who needs axes anyway), no one comments.  Steve gets some free anger management therapy, Laura and Clint get enough fuel to last them for the next five years, everyone wins.

It’s just past noon on Wednesday when Tony appears on CSPAN, and they’re all in Clint’s living room silently vowing to avoid breaking any of his furniture.  (It’s the thought that counts.)  Steve’s on one end of the sofa, Natasha curled up at the other with her feet tucked under her.  Laura’s in one of the armchairs, and Clint perches on the armrest, putting him roughly between his wife and Natasha.  Bruce is deliberately absent, mostly to avoid accidentally demolishing Clint’s house, but Sam’s on the couch beside Steve, with Rhodey in a chair appropriated from the kitchen table.  Wanda’s taken the other armchair, and Pietro leans against the back of it while Thor stands behind the sofa like a sentry, no less imposing for his lack of armor.  Baby Nathaniel’s down for a nap, and the other two kids are off playing in their room where the adults and their tempers can’t reach.

“Your actions were beyond irresponsible, Mr Stark,” a senator from Florida accuses, “and this callous disregard for human life only supports everything we have learned about SHIELD in the last months.”

“Calling us irresponsible suggests a lack of liability, or unreliability,” Tony replies cooly, “which I do believe is your domain, Senator, not ours.  Perhaps you missed the part of the debrief in which the entire team nearly died, all so we could evacuate the city before it _vaporized_.”

“None of which would have been necessary if not for _your_ belief in your right to play god.”  A senator from Oregon, this time, and the look Tony gives her in response is flat and unrelenting.

Gesturing at the folders on the table before each member, he repeats, “It seems you as well missed a part of the debrief, or you would know that the machinations of a Nazi madman would have destroyed more than one city with or without the help of a rogue AI.”

And so it goes, on and on as they try to place the censure for every failure on Tony’s shoulders; and attribute every triumph, however meagre, to the intelligence agencies or the Avengers team at large, as though Tony is somehow not a part of that very team.  What’s worse is, he lets them: he defends the team without fail, stalwart to the point of acrimony in multiple instances, but every direct accusation to him alone is simply deflected.  He’s too adroit in this sort of political arena to make the mistake of outright admitting fault, but unlike every other piece of testimony he’s ever given, none of his excoriating dismissal goes directly toward clearing his own name.  He’s wearing his media persona without a single crack, but Steve can discern the tension in the set of his shoulders, in the smiles that are more a baring of teeth and never quite reach his eyes.  Steve doesn’t, however, process exactly how infuriated he is on the other man’s behalf until the borrowed mug in his hand cracks.  At least it was empty—small mercies—but he stares down at it uncomprehendingly all the same.  It’s patterned with smiling bats, which was cute at first and now feels ironic, because the piece in his hand is half a face and a broken smile, and that rings too true with reality for comfort.

“Sorry,” he mumbles after a moment.

Clint waves off the apology with a commiserating look, and Laura offers him a sympathetic smile.  “Terrible Christmas gift,” she tells him.  “We always hated that mug.”

From the other side of the sofa, he can _feel_ the silence emanating from Natasha in waves, the arctic chill of wrath that heralds danger far worse than bullets and explosives and knives.  The entire room feels that way, helplessly watching one of their own get eviscerated on live television.  Monsters and aliens and traitors and creatures born of nightmares can be fought; this, though, cannot, and the feckless anger makes it that much worse.

The committee doesn’t adjourn until nearly 1900h, two hours later than originally planned.  When none of them hear from Tony, Natasha calls Pepper.  Their conversation lasts less than a minute, and when she hangs up she sets the phone on the coffee table so carefully it’s clear she’d much rather throw it through someone’s head.

“He’s been called to an SI board meeting,” she informs them, cold and monotonous.  “The shareholders are apparently railroading him to determine whether or not he has enough net worth to merit the company fighting through these bullshit allegations, or if they should simply cut him loose.”

They’re all staring at her, but it’s Thor who says what they’re all thinking: “It is _his_ company.”

The smile Natasha gives him is alarmingly malevolent, moreso because it isn’t even directed _at_ him.  “That is what Maria and Pepper are saying.”  What she doesn’t say is just as clear: the only person not contending for Tony’s right to stay is Tony himself.

“Was anyone else watching CSPAN when Congress tried to go after the suit’s technology?” Clint asks, and most of the room nods.  “The first time he left for DC, I figured _that’s_ what he’d be giving them.”

“He knows the press and the politics better than any of you,” Laura agrees.  “He’d have been your best weapon against them.”

Sam shakes his head.  “Did anyone remember to tell _him_ that?”

Thursday isn’t much better, though no one breaks anything.  The risk of one of them having an aneurysm is rather high, but that’s a problem in a different class.  The initial arrangement had been two days of hearings, but as the day winds down and they are no closer to anything that could be used as a culminating decision, they call for the committee to reconvene on Friday.  Steve heads back into the yard to resume his methodical disarticulation of logs, and Thor joins him a few minutes later.

Like Steve, he doesn’t bother with axes, and there’s some component of subconscious, albeit friendly, rivalry as they work.  “Every time I think I’ve begun to understand your people, they do something else that confounds me,” he says after a couple of minutes and a tree each at minimum.

“Sometimes I can’t believe I died for this,” Steve retorts, the log in his hand coming apart like shredded paper.  “We fought Hitler to keep him from wiping out half the world, and seventy years later the people running this country are sniping at each other like jealous toddlers.”

“Seeking blame is in our nature, and we are _all_ party to guilt, deserved or otherwise, but this is…insensate.”

Steve laughs, hollow and caustic.  “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”

 _Another_ , he thinks, _is “conditioned response_ ”; that it’s a phrase and not a word doesn’t really matter a whit.  He hates bullies, which therefore translates to never wanting to be one; but this minute, had they the capacity for time travel, he’d dearly love to go back and strangle certain people.

\----------

 _7 March 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Glaring at his unresponsive phone, Steve blows out an exasperated breath and hurls the thing into the other sofa in a fit of pique.  Throwing it out the window is tempting, but that would require either getting up to open said window, or throwing the phone straight _through_ it.  Right now, neither option is particularly compelling.

“I am living the worst romcom ever,” he declares to the empty room, growling ambiguous comminations at nothing in particular under his breath and raking a hand through his hair.

Had anyone asked, he’d be hard pressed to say with whom he was more disgruntled: himself, or Tony.  New Year’s should have been the point of origin for something—what, exactly, he doesn’t know, but _something_.  And yet, they keep being detained by one catastrophe after another; when it isn’t that, one of them inevitably ends up retreating.  Tony had gotten home from that first hearing four days ago, and it had felt like perhaps that time might be different.  Until he’d sequestered himself in the lab and the workshop as was his wont, or been pulled away to an SI meeting Pepper wouldn’t let him miss.  Steve’s spoken to him perhaps twice, and the usual nonsense texts are either getting lost in the shuffle or flat-out discarded, he isn’t sure. But he doesn’t know how hard to pursue the matter without scaring Tony off, isn’t even convinced half the time they’re so much as in the same book, never mind on the same page, so they persist in this implicit deadlock.

“It’s like he’s _trying_ to make this harder,” he mutters, letting his head fall to thud against the back of the couch.  “You’d think, after you save each other’s lives a couple thousand times, they’d, oh, I don’t know, _trust you_.”

The room, quite astonishingly, doesn’t answer, and Steve permits himself a few more minutes of wallowing and self-pity before shoving himself upright again.  If he’s going to be bored and frustrated, he might as well get some paperwork out of the way.  The setting sun throws the room into shadows and silhouettes, but he doesn’t bother turning on the lamp as he pulls his tablet off the side table—backlit screens, energy conservation, it’s a thing.

But the “bored” part must be more boring than he thought, because he wakes with a start to a dark room, tablet lying facedown on his chest.  The clock reads midnight, and given how little actual sleep Steve’s been getting he figures it’s not that surprising.  Brief deliberation on finishing the paperwork he’d started concludes with not a whole hell of a lot of resolve, so he turns the StarkPad back on long enough to at least save what he’d completed and go to bed.  Comfortable as the furniture may be, it’s hard to beat an actual mattress now that he’s grown accustomed to them.

He intends on a cursory glance through his emails, making sure no last-minute meetings have been scheduled for ass o’clock in the morning.  Instead, he finds a blank email with a video file attached, originating from the SI servers.  It’s not from Tony—it’s got a subject, for one thing—and it’s not from Pepper, since she tends to write discrete, coherent sentences and greetings and all the fun formalities Tony usually skips.  Nor does Steve know anyone else who’d be sending him emails from SI, which just makes this weird.

The file itself scans clean, so out of curiosity he opens it.

He promptly wishes he hadn’t.

It takes him a second to place the location; it takes him no time at all to place the people.  He knows _of_ the mansion that had been in Malibu but has never been there, and while Tony still owns the land he hasn’t committed to rebuilding anything after the Mandarin debacle demolished the property.  After today, Steve’s not sure he’d ever _want_ to go there.  He sees Tony freeze in the process of answering the phone, just before his body goes slack and he crumples against the cushions; he recognizes Obadiah Stane as he comes into view, sitting beside Tony with a peremptory air like he’s there for a drink and some casual conversation.

He can’t shut it off, staring in horror the way passersby do at massive vehicle collisions on the highway, or whatever disasters the team sees on a regular basis.  He watches Stane rend Tony’s fucking heart from his chest, and it’s like a film he’s already seen before but can’t process: he knows Tony survives, but that’s irrelevant when Tony’s dying on that couch, alone and too pale even in the low light and the distance between him and wherever the security camera was. It’s as though it’s happening all over again, and Tony’s going to die once more.  Steve had heard _about_ this from various sources, but he’d never gotten much in the way of concrete details beyond the fact that it predicated the catastrophic highway fight and subsequent press conference from hell.

He sort of wishes he still didn’t have the details, because the ragged, shallow rise and fall of Tony’s chest only makes his own grip tighten on the tablet.  When at last Tony moves, dragging himself across the floor and into his workshop by his literal fingertips, Steve is reminded of nothing so much as Bucky when he’d found the 107th behind German lines.  It hurts— _would_ hurt even if they weren’t trying to find Bucky right now, if he and Tony weren’t involved in whatever the fuck this nebulous, ill-defined _thing_ is.  He wants to slap himself, because suddenly Tony’s half-conscious distrust makes a thousand times more sense; and he wants to resurrect Stane just so he can punch him in the face before he hurls him into the reactor with his own hands.

He hears the crack before the screen goes dark, and he blinks suddenly, realizing it was the sound of the tablet’s frame caving under his grip.  “JARVIS, lights, please?” he says, still distracted.  Until, as he’s forcing himself to loosen his grip and set the now-useless device aside, it strikes him that he does know one other someone associated with the Stark name who has access to the company’s servers.  Conveniently, that same someone was the only other entity in the room while he was shouting invectives at the ceiling.

“You sent this, didn’t you?” he asks.

He gets only an “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question, Captain,” and he doesn’t bother trying to argue.  The AI is smarter than he is; he’ll lose.

Instead, he says, “Is Tony still in his workshop?”, and he’s already heading for the doors when JARVIS tells him to head for the labs instead.  Less than a minute later, he raps his knuckles lightly against the glass wall as the door itself slides away.

“Hey, you,” Tony says, looking up with a startled blink.  Then he glances at his watch, and in spite of his mood Steve can’t help but laugh.

“It’s not even one in the morning,” he replies to the unanswered question, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“That is not what I was wondering,” he protests, and Steve raises an eyebrow.  “Oh, shut up,” he says at last, chucking a balled-up piece of paper in Steve’s general direction.  “What brings you down here, anyway?  I thought you’d be sleeping, like most sane people.”

Which is the moment when Steve wants to kick himself, because the forethought to concoct a plausible cover story might have been helpful.  He certainly can’t tell the truth, and what the hell kind of strategist is he.  Sheepishly, he wordlessly holds out the tablet, and both Tony’s eyebrows make a break for his hairline.

“You do know it’s not a stress ball, right?” he asks rhetorically.  “I mean, I’m good, but even I’m not _that_ good.”

Thinking fast, Steve vaguely recollects Natasha or Clint commenting on the next round of elections, so he hedges, “Sorry, I made the mistake of watching the Republican presidential debate from the last election,” and crosses his fingers surreptitiously behind his back.

Tony snorts.  “Yeah, that’s always a bad plan,” he says, but he seems to accept the story at face value, crossing the room to the row of cabinets along the far wall and pulling out a replacement.  “Try putting it on the table the next time you click on YouTube selections you know are bad for your blood pressure.”

“Nothing’s bad for my blood pressure,” Steve manages to say with a straight face.

Like the adult he is, Tony sticks his tongue out at him.  “Generally speaking—you know, for the rest of us mere mortals,” he shoots back, and Steve grins.

“What are you working on, anyway?” he asks.  Right this moment, he’d kind of appreciate the visual reassurance that Tony’s still breathing, and he seems to be setting up Steve’s new tablet on autopilot anyway.

The engineer quite happily launches into an explanation (most of which Steve even follows, thank god for evolution), and at some point Steve’s questions aren’t just curiosity provoked from the need for an excuse.  If he doesn’t end up leaving the lab until morning, when people have started showing up in the communal kitchen below, well.  No one asks why, and he doesn’t volunteer.  It works.

\----------

 _20 March 2015_ ; _the Barton farm—location: classified - Manhattan, New York_

Late Friday afternoon, Laura surprises them all by essentially rescinding her invitation and kicking them out.  “The plan might have been for him to come out here, but if I looked like that I don’t think I’d remember my own name,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument whatsoever.  “Go.  Don’t let him come back to an empty home.”  There really is no effective dissent to be had, so they leave, and the look of gratitude Steve shoots her over his shoulder earns him a smile.

Hours after they get back to New York, it’s dark out when Tony finally returns.  He seems mildly confused to see them, but he’s also mostly asleep on his feet, so if he ever intended to ask any questions, they don’t make it out of his head.  Like a choreographed routine, Pepper steals his briefcase and locks it in his office; Natasha pushes Tony gently into a chair at the kitchen table; while Clint ladles out a bowl of soup and the rest of them pretend they haven’t already eaten.  Bruce takes one look at Tony, then steps out of the room, returning a few minutes later to dim the lights and set two white pills beside Tony’s plate.

“Migraine meds and a painkiller,” he says simply, and Tony mumbles something along the lines of, “Bless you.”  Or maybe it’s “chess move,” but he doesn’t look quite _that_ incoherent.  Yet, anyway.

“Say the word and I will go to this Senate of yours and smite these imbeciles who have inexplicably obtained a role of importance,” Thor offers.

It’s nothing any of the rest of them haven’t been thinking, even if it sounds a little more suited for addressing the Asgardian royal court than his team in the common room kitchen.  It at least gets Tony to smile—a drained smile that’s the barest twitch of his facial muscles, but still an improvement over the sharply calculated, knife-edge, press-ready expressions he’s been wearing all week.

“Right now I’m pretty sure that would kind of just help them prove their point, but give me a minute and I’ll probably change my mind,” he says.

Five minutes later, after Tony’s almost faceplanted in his soup bowl, Natasha mother-hens him out of the kitchen.  “Make sure he finds something that isn’t the floor,” she says to Steve, only half-kidding.

He slides an arm around Tony’s waist, practically carrying his weight as he gets him into the elevator and up to the penthouse.  The combination of food, pain meds, and the sudden cessation of people hurling accusations at him are more potent than any sedative invented.  In the bedroom, Tony mumbles something against Steve’s shoulder, the words muffled by the fabric of Steve’s shirt; when he looks down, Tony’s suddenly _there_ , kissing him.  It’s uncoordinated and rough with exhaustion, but there’s an honesty to that tacit admission of vulnerability, as though Steve is the first breath of fresh air he’s had in his life, as though Steve is the only thing keeping him upright.

That last, at least, is mostly true.

Tony gets as far as toeing off his shoes and draping belt, suit jacket, and tie over the back of a chair before he more or less collapses onto the bed, curled on his side with his face half-buried in a pillow.  The room is warm enough to get away with sleeping on top of the covers, but Steve pulls a throw blanket from the closet all the same, tossing it across the bed.  It’s only when he turns to leave that he realizes Tony hadn’t actually fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, because there’s a hand catching at his wrist as he steps away.  Tony cracks an eye open and tugs lightly, and Steve’s resolve to leave him to sleep crumbles like cheap plaster.

He slides onto the bed from the opposite side, whereupon Tony replaces the actual pillow with Steve’s torso, tucked against his side like an oversized cat.  Propped partially upright against the pillows, Steve cards his fingers gently through Tony’s hair, watching him.  Since that night just after New Year’s, they’ve been in this holding pattern, caught between crises without time for the luxury of figuring out where they stand with one another.  They’re good together, and not just in the bedroom, but every time they’ve fallen into bed with each other in the months since then, it’s felt more like a casual fling than a relationship.  Or, it would, except for how you don’t usually wake up beside your casual fling after a night spent just sleeping, wanting to never get out of bed unless it’s to go on an actual date.  Steve’s almost grateful they’ve been run so ragged he hasn’t had time to ask, because he’s mildly terrified he’d lose his nerve if he tried.

“We really need to figure out what this is,” he says quietly into the darkness, after Tony’s breathing has evened out.  But again sleep doesn’t seem to have fully settled, because Tony shifts, tilting his head back to look up at Steve, eyes bright in the faint traces of moonlight filtering through the window.

“Later?” he half-mumbles, hand searching out Steve’s by feel and tangling their fingers together.  With his thumb pressed over Steve’s pulse point, the corners of his mouth curve upward in a weary smile just touched with enough awareness to be called hope.

Steve can’t help but mirror it, agreeing, “Later,” because right now it doesn’t matter.  Right now, it’s just them, enveloped in silence and nightfall with the rest of the world left behind on the other side of closed doors.  Right now, it’s more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> Možete li mi pomoći?—Can you help me?  
> Da, dođite sa mnom—Yes, come with me.
> 
> All Croatian is drawn from tourist-guide phrasebooks; if you see something that’s wrong, please tell us! The path we put the characters on for their trek through Eastern Europe was in fact done intentionally, but if you catch a glaring geographic anomaly, that’s probably because we were working off satellite maps for _x_ section. Additionally, all snark regarding Eastern European cities was composed by someone who lives there; please do not shoot the proverbial messengers, we do not actually hate you. ;)
> 
> Point of reference: CIA “agents” are not actually referred to as agents, but officers, hence our never labelling Sharon a CIA agent. “Agents”, in non-Hollywood CIA parlance, are the individuals recruited by CIA officers, who convey information about their respective countries or agencies to to the Agency. They do not officially work for the United States or the CIA proper and remain in the employ of whoever they worked for at the time of their recruitment.
> 
> Chapter title from WB Yeats’ “The Sorrow of Love”. Section titles from _SMASH_ ’s “I Can’t Let Go”; Mumford & Sons’ “Holland Road”; Florence + the Machine’s “Ship to Wreck”; Kelly Clarkson’s “Dance with Me”; Mumford & Sons’ “Ghosts That We Knew” (2); Mumford & Sons’ “Broken Crown”; Florence + the Machine’s “No Light, No Light”; Kelly Clarkson’s “Tightrope”; AC/DC’s “TNT”; Mumford & Sons’ “Hot Gates”; and Florence + the Machine’s “Third Eye”


	3. Part II: No Eleventh Hour Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting what you wish for doesn’t always work out the way you hope. The team deals with the personal fallout of a covert op and reunites with someone they thought they’d never see again, while some lost people are found, and everyone apologises to everyone else. Excessively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: psychological deprogramming, and references to the programming itself; guilt and self-blame; emotional awkwardness; miscommunication; medical torture (withholding treatment as a means of control)
> 
> This chapter has been nothing but angst, but we promise the next one balances it out with some fluff, some humour, and some crack. ;) This is also our last update of 2017, so we will see you on the other side of the New Year and hope you have a lovely end to the holiday season!

**i. i will call you by name; i will know your road**

_10 April 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

By mid-April, the furore of post-Ultron hearings has at least slowed. They have by no means ceased, nor is there reason to believe they will at any point in the near future, but they are mercifully being scheduled bi-weekly or monthly as opposed to raking them over the coals four times in one week. (Tony’s guilt, on the other hand, seems to have amplified tenfold for reasons he either can’t or won’t explain.)

On one of the days when Tony’s not standing before some governing body or other, and the team isn’t out on a call, they get a hit on Bucky’s location.

It’s just the second worst option imaginable.

Steve and Sam have been in the workshop with Tony since morning, having evidently managed to miss at least lunch. For the umpteenth time, they’re combing through the collected intel from Tony’s searches, from Zagreb, from Sam and Steve’s last trip to Romania, from a million other data points. Then four of the six active screens come alive like lighthouse beacons, alarms blood-red and eerie. Over the background music, JARVIS says, “Sir, there is a new bulletin out on the Winter Soldier.”

Anticipating another dead end, as they have been since the search started six months ago, Steve swallows down a sigh while Tony pulls up the alert. It turns out JARVIS is right, as usual: this isn’t the customarily vague “brown-haired man made a purchase” tabloid call, or the equally useless “confirmed sighting six hours ago”. This time it’s valid, a CIA transmission to JSOC—Top Secret SCI has nothing on Tony’s systems—stating they’ve had a confirmed sighting of the Soldier and are mobilizing a joint team with Delta Force and GSG 9 in two hours out of Germany. Steve’s blood turns to ice in his veins, and his hands catching the edge of the table are the only things keeping him from ending up face-first on the floor. Not until he feels Sam’s fingers on his wrist does he think to look down, registers he’s still gripping the surface so tightly he’s cracked the wood. But the only thing worse than the CIA finding Bucky would have been an SVR intercept of the same, and he doesn’t need to remember the repercussions of his own alleged treason to know Bucky’s as good as gone if the government gets him first. Russia would probably torture him, definitely kill him. He doesn’t think the US would let it go that quickly.

“We can’t,” he blurts out, only aware he’s interrupting Tony’s string of multilingual expletives _after_ the words have left his mouth. “We can’t let them get to him first.”

It’s a sentence Captain America should never have to say about his own people, and he expects protest when he meets Tony’s eyes. _Please_ , he thinks, _don’t make me beg_. And perhaps the psychic transmissions are working today, or perhaps he never should have doubted Tony, because all the engineer says is, “They won’t.” Then he’s typing things too quickly for Steve to follow, adding, “Sam, call Nat, tell her to meet us at the Quinjet. Wheels up in seven,” before he looks back at Steve. “You want anyone else in on this?”

Wanting to decline, Steve feels like a conspirator against his own team for it. But so far no one else has been fully briefed on the extent of their search, and now they can’t afford the time it would take to explain. So he shakes his head and says no, pushes the guilt down and away to contend with at some other point that isn’t now.

Seven minutes later, the four of them are in the Quinjet bay, forgoing their decidedly conspicuous uniforms for SHIELD-issue fieldgear and arming themselves to the teeth. None of them wants to turn this into a lethal confrontation, either for them or for the people who are just doing their jobs; but they’ve all been in the business too long to believe that just because the plan is to be in and out before the team from Germany lands means that’s how it will pan out. Besides, Tony’s distrust of federal bureaucracy runs far deeper than Steve’s. He knows damn well what will happen if they don’t get to Bucky in time, prompting him to pack the Mark 47—the new stealth armor he’d just finished a few months ago—alongside Sam’s gear.

“You have the tranq gun?” Tony asks Natasha quietly, and Steve looks away before he can say something he’ll regret.

Holding it up before she locks it in with the rest of the weapons, Natasha nods. “Enough to take down an elephant or three.”

With their usual pilot absent, Tony takes the proverbial wheel with Natasha in her customary place sitting shotgun.

\----------

 _16 December 2014_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“When we find him,” Natasha says, “what is the plan?”

Shooting her a look he hopes conveys _thank you for saying ‘when’ and not ‘if’_ , Steve replies, “It depends on the circumstances. By the time we were falling out of the Helicarrier, I think the programming, or whatever they call it, was starting to break down. If that kept happening, I’d like to think he’d have a little more clarity—and, ideally, require less in the way of restraining force. But if Russia or whoever Pierce took him from finds him first, we’ll be back on that bridge again.”

Tapping her pen against the table, Natasha nods slowly, pausing like she’s trying to decide whether or not to voice whatever she’s thinking. “Even if they don’t,” she says at last, and there’s an apologetic note in her voice that foreshadows less-than-good news, “you should be prepared for a worst-case scenario.”

She’s been at the Tower for three days, and this is the first time they’ve all managed to sit down and go over Bucky’s case in person. Her intel has been trickling in along with the rest of theirs, but she has insight into the training program that they don’t, however patchy it may be. It just falls into the realm of information they _need_ to know, not information they want.

Which is why Tony and not Steve is the one to say, “I assume there’s more than one. What are you thinking?”

Reluctantly, she runs a hand through her hair, twisting the ends between her fingers. “When I knew him, our handlers kept him in cryo more than any other operative from Red Room or his directorate of the KGB. He fought them a lot—when the memory implants were solid, he was the best they had, but as soon as they started to fail, pieces of his old life started to surface. He _kept_ fighting for as long as we worked together.” She shakes her head, blue eyes focused on some distant memory. “Even when we were… _together_ , he didn’t talk about it, not much. Neither of us did—it would have only gotten us both killed. But I could see it, the change when their manufactured histories started breaking down. He went through more memory wipes, and more handlers, than any of us.”

Waving a hand dismissively, as if she can dispel the thoughts as easily as dust, she continues, “My point is, there’s a very real possibility the returning memories won’t just be the real ones. When I left, I had flashes from half the lives they’d ever given me. Even now there are things I still can’t tell apart, and I went through maybe half the number of wipes he did _while_ we were there. I also didn’t have anything close to the kind of established life he had that needed to be erased. When those lines blur, it’s…disconcerting, to say the least, and if he’s on his own trying to parse fact from fiction…”

“Overload,” Tony finishes for her, and she nods, leaning forward to brace her elbows on the glass tabletop.

“Understatement,” she agrees.

It’s the most sentences Steve (or any of them, he’s fairly certain) has ever heard her speak in a row, about anything, never mind her past. Somehow, that makes the whole thing exponentially worse to hear.

Looking up, she stares straight at Steve. “I know that lethal force is all but off the table,” she says, “but if you don’t have some sort of contingency plan, it will not end well.”

Sam leans back in his chair, flipping through a hard copy of the file. “What would you recommend?”

“Tranquilizers,” she says, flat and firm like she’s trying to preempt the protest already on Steve’s lips. “If you end up needing them, you won’t be able to get close enough for an injection. I’m fairly certain we have a tranq gun, and if we don’t, get one.”

“I’m not shooting him down like a rabid dog!” It’s only when all three of them turn to stare at him that Steve’s aware of his own volume, that he might as well have been shouting.

“Steve.”

“Tony, no, I _won’t_ —”

“ _Steve_.” Tony waits for Steve to look up, to make eye contact, and he’s done enough in the past months that Steve draws in a breath and bites his tongue, forces himself to shut up. “It’s nobody’s first choice, but she’s right. The two of you—” He points at Steve and Natasha in turn. “—are the only ones who have a chance against him if I’m not wearing the armor. If push comes to shove, getting him back drugged where we can talk him down or whatever is better than not getting him back at all.”

Instinct still says no, and loudly at that, and Steve drops his head into his hands. “How is this real,” he mutters to himself, though at least no one does him the disservice of trying to answer. “Fine. Fine, we’ll…leave it on the list,” he concedes. “Come back to it later.”

Except they never do come, circumstances repeatedly cutting them off every time it could have come up for discussion. All it means is that the gun sits in the weapons locker like an elephant in the room every time they go out. Logically, Steve gets it; but logic matters strangely little when it comes to shooting your brainwashed best friend to keep him from trying to kill you. Again.

\----------

 _11 April 2015_ ; _Suceava, Romania_

Six hours later, Tony’s landing them in a remote stretch of field just outside Suceava. They’ve run the Quinjet at max speed exactly once, and never at such distance. Which is probably a good thing, since it’s proven both terrifying and awe-inspiring: it cut their travel time nearly in two, and despite remaining cloaked since takeoff, they still have enough fuel to make the return flight twice over. Steve’s never been so grateful for Tony’s engineering in his life.

“All right, let’s do this,” Sam says as they finish gearing up and Tony steps into his armor, its matte black finish seeming to absorb light instead of reflecting it.

“Joint taskforce can’t be more than forty-five minutes behind us, if that,” he adds as the pieces click into place across his chest. “Move fast.”

It’s long past dark at this point, faint moonlight obscured by cloud cover their only source of illumination, and Tony distributes night-vision gear extracted from seemingly out of nowhere on the jet. “Less noticeable out in the open than flashlights,” he says with a shrug when they all turn to give him matching baffled looks.

A moment later he’s closing the hatch behind them, and Natasha takes point as soon as they’re on the ground. They’re aiming for an abandoned warehouse just over a mile from the treeline, west of where they’d landed, and their gear blends perfectly into the darkness and the convenient cover of the forest. At a hundred yards out, Natasha motions for Steve and Tony to head right while she and Sam go left. They hardly have the personnel for full coverage, or even anything remotely resembling it. Then again, it’s not as though they don’t all have ample experience working in so-far-from-ideal-it’s-on-another-planet conditions.

There’s a distinct lack of fencing, which works in the sense that it gives them a clear line of sight, but is terrible in the sense that once they leave the trees they’re walking targets, completely exposed. The interior of the building presents approximately the same problem, with the added complication of being dusty and dark, shadows cast along the floor by the sickle moon. It’s only one floor, with absurdly high windows, which is tactically convenient. It’s also an open floorplan for the entire front half of the building, which is tactically horrifying and an excellent way to die. Steve pauses long enough to force himself to draw in a deep breath, shoving aside anything that differentiates this from any other operation, and Tony steps up beside him. For just a moment, he lays a hand at the small of Steve’s back.

Then he says over the comms, “Not picking up heat signatures or motion or much of anything out here.”

“Move in,” Natasha replies.

They clear the place systematically, room by room. Natasha’s carrying a P90, her usual Berettas holstered at her thighs, with Sam wielding the tranq gun and Steve holding a SIG556 he doesn’t know he’ll be able to fire. This time, though, it has nothing to do with his general aversion to firearms and everything to do with who might be on the other end.

Ten minutes later, they converge on what once must have been the boiler room, where they almost literally trip over Bucky. Like a freeze frame from some bizarre 80s science fiction film, they all stand immobilized, weapons automatically trained on one another. Whatever they’d anticipated—fight, flight, ambush, anything—this hadn’t made the list.

A breath; two; three.

The gun in Bucky’s hands begins to waver, and after a moment he lowers the pistol in still-shaking hands until it hangs loose at his side.

Taking a hesitant half-step toward Steve, he says, “I know you.”

Years of training-cum-muscle memory are the only thing keeping Steve from moving. He just doesn’t know if it would be to move forward or reel away.

“Light incoming,” Tony says, a quiet warning over the comms for their ears only.

They drop the night vision goggles to hang around their necks as Tony retracts a panel at his right shoulder to project some low ambient lighting. It’s just bright enough to see by, soft as the dusk at sunset, and they’re deep enough into the facility that there aren’t any windows for it to attract any immediate attention. Standing there dumbstruck, Steve finds himself at a loss. His friend looks wrecked, pale and too thin and wary, confusion painted across his face as he surveys the others. There’s a hefty metal pipe propped against the wall within arm’s reach, and he’s got at least one other firearm visible, but he no longer has anyone in his crosshairs. Slowly, they let him out of theirs, bringing their weapons down to low ready.

“I know you,” he repeats. It’s tremulous, but not for lack of certainty—rather, he seems to expect them to not believe him, to shoot, to take any course of action other than standing there waiting. Then Steve feels Natasha’s hand on his arm.

Without taking her eyes off Bucky, she warns quietly, “Careful.”

The movement draws Bucky’s attention to her, and a deep furrow appears between his eyes as he stares hard at her, tipping his head to the side. “Natalia,” he says, accent suddenly Russian.

“Djenya,” she replies cautiously, and his shoulders relax a fraction.

Swallowing hard, Steve draws Bucky’s attention back. “Bucky.” His voice catches on the name, and there’s a flash of recognition in the soldier’s eyes before the confusion returns. “I—is this—do you know who you are?” he asks finally, for lack of a better question.

For a long moment, there is no answer, and when it finally comes it’s halting. “I—not always. There’s…there’s too much.” He gestures vaguely at his head. “But I—” He breaks off, mutters something under his breath that they can’t make out. “You were my mission,” he says quietly, “but you…I knew you before.” Steve is torn between relief and disbelief, and some of it must show on his face, because Bucky blurts out, “Your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers on your shoes. You picked fights you couldn’t win because you hated bullies. You—”

“Okay,” Steve cuts in.

There’s desperation building in Bucky’s voice, like he expects to be called a liar and handed over to the first willing bidder. It leaves Steve wanting nothing more than to go back in time and throttle the collective Nazis and the KGB or SVR or whoever the hell is responsible for this. He cuts a glance over his shoulder at Natasha, one eyebrow raised in silent question. _Is their programming that good_?

She gives a minute shake of her head, and Steve draws in a breath. “If you know me, if you know her,” he says, voice quiet and level now as he tips his head in Natasha’s direction, “you know, I hope, that we’re on your side. But the Americans know you’re here, and a lot of very angry people are coming for you.”

“I haven’t—not since—I don’t—” Bucky tries to say, and though the words are aborted and rough, Steve nods.

“I know,” he says. He isn’t entirely certain he does (he’s not entirely certain of anything at the moment), but the other man looks sufficiently coherent, and the part of Steve that wants to believe his one-time best friend is for now drowning out the doubt. “I know,” he repeats, “but they don’t, and we don’t have time to explain it to them. We need to leave—now. I don’t know how much you remember, but if you remember me as well as you seem to, I need you to trust me, just until we get out of here. Will you come with us?”

There’s a weighty pause in which they’re all holding their breaths; then Bucky nods shortly, holstering his gun. Before he can move, Natasha steps forward, rifle braced against her shoulder and free hand outstretched. An entire conversation is conducted in five seconds of silence before Bucky slowly removes the holster and surrenders all of it into her keeping. She clips it to her belt before moving to his left to retrieve the carbine rifle against the wall, passing it to Sam behind her back, eyes remaining on Bucky. It isn’t as though he can’t kill them all with his bare hands without breaking a sweat, but an operative under siege—metaphorical or literal—willingly disarming himself is a gesture that speaks volumes.

 _This is too easy_ , Steve can’t help but think. They’re not under fire; Bucky is lucid, almost too much so; and Steve’s half-consciously waiting for the illusion of success to fragment, for the moment when everything snaps and the Winter Soldier is back.

When they make for the jet, Tony and Sam take the lead, leaving Natasha to bring up the rear and Steve to flank Bucky. The question of restraints hangs heavy and unspoken in the air between them, something for which the need for silence provides a perfect excuse to avoid. Once onboard, Sam makes for the copilot’s chair, bringing the panels to life as Tony looks back at Natasha, waiting. Bucky sits where she indicates, and if his body language is wary and on edge, at least it doesn’t seem to pose imminent threat of inevitable homicide. Steve and Natasha take seats across from him, and she’s traded the rifle model of the tranq gun for the handgun version to account for the smaller space. Meeting Tony’s eyes, she nods once.

He has them airborne less than a minute later.

 

**ii. do not ask the price i paid**

_11 April 2015_ ; _New York, New Avengers facility—location: classified_

Maria’s waiting for them in the Quinjet bay when they get back to the Tower at the ass end of the morning. The first thing she says when the hatch comes down is, “You know, if you’d bothered to leave any comms access available, I could have told you not to waste time parking.”

“And where would the fun be in that?” Tony asks.

“Strangely enough, we’re hearing some very angry chatter from some very angry spec ops teams and some equally angry Agency officers. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

With a shrug, Tony replies blithely, “Who, me? Not a clue.” Then he sighs, putting the sarcasm aside as he steps all the way out of the jet, lowering his voice to keep from being overheard. “Who knows?”

Leaning against the wall, she tips a hand from side to side in the universal gesture for “eh”. “No one’s confirmed anything, but you—all of you—are wanted up at the Academy. Boss wants to see you. SHIELD’s not going to blow the whistle on the Soldier, not yet, but unless you want to create a new cave in your basement, you don’t have the facilities here to contain him if—” She pauses, then continues diplomatically, “If things don’t go well. Maybe everything will be fine, in which case he’ll still need to be debriefed and evaluated by _someone_. We’ll take you three at your word when you say you don’t need a holding cell, but in this case we’d do better to err on the side of caution.”

Turning to look over his shoulder, Tony calls, “Don’t deplane just yet. We’re wanted upstate.” Then he turns back to Maria. “I gather by your clothes that you plan to go with us.”

“I do.”

“Well then,” he says with a mock half-bow, extending his hand toward the jet, “let’s get this party over with.”

They’re on site at the new Avengers Academy in less than thirty minutes, where a team of agents awaits them on the tarmac. “Protocol,” Maria says, almost apologetically.

The longer Bucky’s quiet, the more tense the rest of them become. It’s worse than watching the timer count down on a bomb: this time they don’t even know if it’s armed, and there’s no way to find out that doesn’t fall under “poking the hornet’s nest”.

“The agents will escort you to a conference room,” she says to Bucky. “Agent Romanov and I will accompany you.”

Small mercies, at least no one tries to cuff him. They seem to think the snipers on the roof and the rifles on the escort will be sufficient deterrent, and so far they don’t appear to be wrong. It leaves Steve with Sam and Tony, watching someone else depart with his friend yet again.

“Director’s office,” Tony says without preamble.

Before they can move, however, they’re intercepted by a short, curvy brunette in a dark gray suit who looks like she’d much rather be in cutoffs and a t-shirt. “You must be Falcon,” she says to Sam by way of greeting. “I’m sure you all know this, but the boss wants to see you.”

“Get a new job, Darcy?” Tony asks after he’s done trying to determine if this entire thing is a hallucination, and one side of her mouth quirks up in a grin.

“I was slightly less useful after you got Jane into her fancy new digs,” she says with a shrug. “SHIELD made me an offer, and they still owe me my freaking iPod, so here I am.” Turning to head back the way she’d come, Darcy gestures for them to follow her to the unofficial office in the east wing of the complex. It’s not the official director’s office, since they don’t officially have a director, but it’s available for their theoretical use. “If someone had bothered to mention the dress code, though,” she adds as they walk, “I might have stuck around to fetch coffee and listen to Jane talk too fast for, y’know, normal people.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to work for corrupt government agencies?” she shoots back easily, then shoos them toward the door a couple yards down the hall. “I don’t think you need me to open a door,” she says over her shoulder, turning left into what’s apparently her own office as they pass her.

Without bothering to knock or wait for a response, Tony just pushes his way in, saying, “You know, Fury, you could have done this…pretty much any other way that isn’t this one.”

Then he stops dead, so abruptly that Steve and Sam crash right into his back, because the man standing behind the desk is _not_ Nick Fury.

“Actually, it’s Director Coulson these days,” he says amiably. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

He takes his own advice while they just stand there in stupefied silence, Tony and Steve gaping at him blankly while Sam looks between them and Phil and tries to figure out what’s happening.

“You’re seeing this, too, right?” Tony says to Steve, who nods slowly, still staring at Phil like he’s just seen a ghost.

“How good are those Life Model Decoys you were talking about?” he asks in turn.

“Not this good,” Tony answers, though he peers at Phil, trying to find _something_ that makes sense of this. He can’t help wishing he’d left the armor on, since at least then he could have had JARVIS run a scan without pulling out his phone.

The man behind the desk looks thoroughly unimpressed, an expression slightly undermined by the amused glint in his eyes. “Well, now that we’ve established that, I repeat, why don’t you sit down?” Still no one moves, and since Sam was bringing up the rear it means he’s effectively stuck in the door until either Steve or Tony get out of the way. Phil sighs. “Yes, it’s me; yes, I’m alive; yes, I’m human; yes, I was dead; no, you are not hallucinating; no, I’m not an evil Ultron bot in disguise.” He raises an eyebrow. “Shall I go on?”

Another beat; then Tony says, “Yeah, okay, no one else can sound quite that exasperated, it must be you.”

“Thank you,” Phil deadpans, as Tony and Steve finally step into the room and sit down, never quite taking their eyes off him. Sam lets the door shut behind him, takes a chair, and doesn’t bother asking for clarification.

“How—” Tony starts to say, but Phil cuts him off before he can finish that sentence.

“Hold that thought,” he advises. “It’s a very long, very strange story that I will tell you at some point, but we have a more pressing matter at hand right now.” Bracing his forearms against the edge of his desk, he looks at each of them in turn. “You’ve brought a pretty big political shitstorm to our front door.”

For a moment, silence reigns supreme, and then Steve bites the bullet. “I couldn’t let him fall into the…wrong hands,” he says, chin lifting in defiance.

“I understand that,” Phil replies, surprisingly amicable given what they’ve just dumped in his lap. “Of all the parties who wanted him, we’re probably the only ones who don’t want to use him for our own benefit.”

“You can’t—” Steve begins, then cuts himself off, brows drawing together in a frown. “Wait, you don’t?”

Tapping his fingers lightly across the blotter on his desk, Phil gives Steve—gives all of them—a long look, like he would if he were assessing them for injuries. “For now, let’s just say I have a personal animus to holding someone for selfish reasons.” Tony raises an eyebrow, and Phil shrugs. “Like I said, long story. In the meantime, how is Sergeant Barnes?”

“More stable than we might have expected,” Tony replies, “but still stuck between lived memories and falsified ones. He hasn’t been volatile since we found him, but—”

Phil’s already nodding, finishing for him, “But that can change in a heartbeat.” Tony dips his head in acknowledgement, and Phil turns his attention to Sam. “Master Sergeant Wilson,” he begins, and Sam blinks once in surprise but otherwise doesn’t react, “we haven’t met, but thank you for your assistance since DC.”

“No thanks necessary, sir,” Sam answers easily, “and it’s just Sam now.” He grins. “I may still have their tech, but I’m officially a civilian.”

Phil cracks a smile, a minuscule twitch of his lips. “Your assessment?”

Shaking his head, Sam shifts forward in his chair. “I haven’t spoken much with Barnes—certainly not enough to have a full picture of his mental state—but he’s lucid. If I had to guess, based on experience I’d put my money on C-PTSD with secondary GAD, and if the man’s not at least a little depressed he’s got a psychiatric resilience that tops 99% of the human population. But frankly I’m more concerned about the depth of Russia’s programming. None of us talked to him enough to pinpoint any triggers, and nothing we said seemed to activate any latent commands, but I can guess at some of the former, and depending how his memory’s doing, dissociative issues aren’t out of the question. If you’ve got psychics you still trust…” He trails off, but Phil nods.

“We’re one step ahead of you,” he replies. “They’ll be here in just shy of two days, and in the meantime I’ve ordered a full medical workup and would like to begin questioning him as soon as he’s cleared.”

“He’s been grilled enough,” Steve says, and though his voice is quiet, the protective fierceness is unmistakable.

Holding up a placating hand, Phil replies, “I know, Steve, and I don’t intend to submit him to outright interrogation right now, but we do need a formal assessment of his mental state and to get an idea of what he knows.” He meets Steve’s gaze and holds it, unflinching. “It’ll be with familiar faces, and you’re welcome to be present unless the doctors advise otherwise. He’s not a prisoner of war, not with us.”

The lines of tension ratcheted across Steve’s shoulders visibly loosen, and he seems to relax in his chair even though he never moves, simply nodding his thanks at Phil, who turns back to Tony.

“I’m assuming you’ll handle the tech?”

Again, Tony gives him that abbreviated nod. “Did a basic scan in the field for any proverbial trip wires, and I’ll get a more thorough assessment in medical.”

Pursing his lips, Phil gives him a considering, searching look. “You seem to be doing this a lot lately, finding people,” he observes at last.

“Yeah, I acquired a new hat trick while you were not-dead,” Tony replies with about half his usual attitude, but the heaviness in the atmosphere lifts.

Phil sighs again.

\----------

 _1 March 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“Ross,” a woman’s voice answers the phone, and Tony skips the pleasantries.

“It’s Tony Stark,” he says. “Can you take a couple vacation days?”

She pauses for a moment, confusion practically audible. “To do what?” she asks at last, clearly knowing better than to accept that kind of question from Tony Stark at face value.

“Take a trip to—” He opens his mouth, looks again at the screen, changes tactics. “Never mind, I can’t pronounce it; city in Serbia.”

“Um,” she replies.

This is beyond the pale even for him, he knows, so he takes pity on her and elucidates: “I think I’ve found Bruce, and—”

“And you think having me there will help blackmail him into coming back,” she finishes immediately, and this is why he loves working with smart people.

“Well, I was going to say ‘give him incentive’, but sure, whatever you want to call it.”

“I’m in.”

“Excellent,” he replies. “There’s a private airfield about a half-hour away from Culver. I’ll send you the details, make sure they know to expect you. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

\----------

 _3 March 2015_ ; _Српски Итебеј (Srpski Itebej), Serbia_

“It’s really too bad he got so damn good at hiding,” Tony mutters sotto voce two days later as they pick their way through what looks like the abandoned intersection of “bumble” and “fuck”.

“At least you got the country right,” Betty offers, and he snorts.

He’d been tracking the Quinjet since Bruce vanished with it, but the perils of being as good as he is at his job include, on occasion, being good enough to hide things even from himself. Out of conditioned, in-case-of-emergency habit, he’d included a backdoor of sorts into the cloaking tech. Unfortunately, between the chaos of recovery in Sokovia and the intricacy of his own coding, he had missed the window where tracking the jet would have been relatively straightforward with JARVIS’ help. That relegated him to waiting on the jet running out of juice, and when it had, the coordinates placed it in the middle of Croatia. He’d done a lot of digging and some less-than-strictly-legal electronic tracking to garner even the faintest clue of Bruce’s whereabouts. A clinic of some sort had been an easy enough guess, but Bruce had already moved on by the time Tony’s sources got him that far. His general trajectory had suggested Serbia, so with some creative mapwork and some not-that-subtle questions to Natasha, he’d stumbled his way through the rest and managed to catch sufficient rumors to lend a little credence to his theory.

Which is why they’re now traipsing through Serbian countryside. He has nothing against it, not really—he’s been there a few times on business, and the capital is lovely—but finding his friend and getting them all the hell back home is pretty high on his wish list at the moment. After twenty-four hours, he’s cold and tired and sadly short on caffeine, and he doubts Betty’s doing much better.

“It’s warmer than I expected,” Betty says toward evening, when they’ve stopped for the night under the cover of a copse of trees that just barely passes muster as the beginnings of a forest.

On the flight out, they’d debated the wisdom of hotels and fake papers and paying for everything in cash, then just as quickly discarded the idea. Betty is, among other things, a brilliant scientist and a deft lecturer capable of capturing the attention of the toughest of audiences, but she is not an operative, and she’s a terrible liar. Tony had prepared documents that would pass muster if it came to it, but he’d asked her, “What’s your name?” Rather than respond with the fake name on her equally fake passport—Bridget Rasmussen—she’d tripped over her real name, her mother’s name, and outright descended into speechlessness. Finally, she’d said ruefully, “It might be faster if I just tell them I’m a spy and they should shoot me.”

Tony, on the other hand, can lie with the best of them: he’s been doing it since he was three, an unfortunate side effect of growing up in the shadow of Howard Stark and Captain America. Lying through his teeth is easier than speaking the truth, but he isn’t an operative, either. He can talk his way out of almost anything, and he has an eye for strategy, but his experience with the intelligence community is on the analytical and science & tech sides, not the fieldwork. The absolute last thing they need right now is for him to be caught in a diplomatic clusterfuck related to Sokovia, and without someone like Natasha or Clint along to handle the undercover tactical side, they’ve got better odds trying to stay off the grid entirely. All the tech in their possession is solar-powered with backup batteries, it’s above freezing, they have decent gear and sufficient food, and so on: he needs to be back in the States before the first Sokovia hearing on the 8th, anyway, so while Betty had enough good will at her disposal to get almost indefinite leave, he currently lacks that luxury.

“At least he didn’t land in Outer Siberia,” Tony agrees, chewing determinedly on a protein bar and promising himself that he’ll never touch another one as soon as he gets back home. “You ever been out this way?”

Sipping at a bottle of water—the first thing she’d done when she arrived in New York was to hand him four reusable water bottles with miniaturized purification filters inside; after two days of literally living on their merits, he fully intends to take them past prototype and have her patent them—she shrugs one shoulder. “Sort of—had conferences all over Eastern Europe and Asia, so I’ve been everywhere from Vienna to Tokyo, but never actually Serbia. Zagreb, once, and Sofia a couple years back, but that’s about it, and most of that was spent in hotels anyway.”

“Hey, it’s the passport stamps that matter,” he replies with a straight face, and she laughs softly.

“True,” she agrees. “By that token I look spectacularly well traveled. How about you?”

“About the same.” He folds the wrapper off the protein bar, shoving it to the bottom of one of his endless coat pockets. “Bounced around a little more than you, but east of Switzerland it’s mostly been work-related somehow. I’ve seen a lot of conference and hotel rooms, but almost always on abbreviated schedules.” Gesturing around them, he gives her a self-deprecating grin. “Even if I hadn’t been so tunnel-visioned in whatever work I was doing, I’ve always been in the major cities. Nothing like this.”

“Perils of dedication,” she says with a bright grin, and he chuckles.

“That’s the polite way of putting it,” he replies, and her grin turns knowing. He lets his head thump back against the tree he’s leaning on, poking at his phone and the tracing program he’s had running since before Betty had even reached New York airspace. “You want to stop, or—”

“Oh, let’s keep going,” she says with a groan. “If we stop I’m half-convinced my body is going to say to hell with all your resolve, it’s never standing up again.”

He snorts. “Come on, doctor, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Waiting for me to regain my sanity instead of tracking down my wayward quasi-ex-boyfriend in the middle of the Eastern European countryside with a madman,” she shoots back cheerfully.

“Hey now,” he protests, “I’m your ride back, remember?”

Pushing herself to her feet and reaching a hand down to him, she rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately, yes.”

He lets her pull him upright and refuses to feel bad about it. (All joking aside, the woman tramples right over every mousy, desk-bound scientist stereotype in existence; he’s beginning to think she does triathlons for fun.) “For what it’s worth,” he offers, tone deliberately light, “I think you can ditch the ‘quasi-ex’ part of that sentence. I’ve heard all his ‘the Other Guy and relationships don’t work’ speeches, and they’re bullshit.” He tosses a grin over his shoulder at her as he passes over the tracker he’d been charging. “Once we get him back, stick around for a bit, he’ll melt like cheap plastic.”

“You give terrible recruitment speeches,” she informs him loftily, but he keeps grinning.

“You say that like I’m not doing it on purpose.”

\----------

 _4 March 2015_ ; _Хетин (Hetin), Serbia_

By late afternoon, they’re perhaps three miles from the Romanian border. They’re approaching a small cluster of homes that seem to center on a farm when they hear the rising clamor that heralds panicking people and transcends every communication barrier that can be construed.

“Why— _why_ —must there always be chaos?” Tony asks no one in particular, casting a glance heavenward.

Betty’s already moving toward the noise, navigating the field with all the skill of a cross-country runner, and Tony’s on her heels in spite of his protests. There are a handful of fences between them and their target, but they’re worn with age and broken in enough places to form a clear path. (Tony makes a mental note to ask Betty if she was a hurdler in high school, because otherwise her agility is just unfair.) As soon as they round the corner of the barn, however, Betty stops in her tracks without warning, nearly sending Tony toppling to the ground in his efforts to avoid slamming into her. They only just manage to stay on their feet, by dint of a shocking amount of strength on Betty’s part and a minor miracle on that of the universe.

“What—” Tony starts, and then he follows her gaze to where it’s frozen on the cluster of people. For a moment, he thinks it’s the teenage boy lying prone on the grass that’s caught her attention.

Then he sees Bruce.

Gaze drawn by the sudden motion of their arrival, Bruce is staring right back at them, looking utterly bushwhacked. Something that might be trepidation flits across his face, registering with Tony like a sucker punch, but he lets it go unacknowledged. For the moment, there are more critical things at hand—namely the ten frightened, hovering people and the boy whose breathing rattles and gasps like an internal combustion engine on its last mile.

“Fuck,” Tony mutters, and Bruce nods once in concurrence.

There’s no color in his face, and the movement is jerky, but his hands are steady where he has two fingers pressed against the boy’s carotid. Betty, by contrast, is unmoving as a statue, but then she draws in a breath and the moment is broken.

“What happened?” she asks briskly, dropping to her knees at the boy’s side, opposite Bruce.

Her hands are quick and sure, barely making contact as she does a rapid check for injury. Bruce blinks at her for a beat before turning to the crowd of people and asking in what even Tony can recognize as halting, rather mortifyingly bad Serbian, “Шта се десило?”

A woman with the same dark brown hair and clear blue eyes as the boy on the ground replies in kind, rapid fire in a voice thick with tears. Slowly, Bruce nods, frowning. “Можете ли причати спорије?” he says. He must have been asking her to speak slower, because she seems to repeat herself, distinctly enough for the syllables to be distinguishable.

“I think he got stung by something—insect? I can’t—she’s saying something else, but I don’t understand the rest of it.” He turns back, saying over his shoulder, “Зовите хитну помоћ!” and one of the men (young, looking scared shitless and probably younger than he is with his shoulders hunched and his forehead creased with worry) pulls out a phone and nods. Tony presumes he’s calling an ambulance, or a doctor, because really, who the hell else do you call when someone’s dying in front of you.

“Anaphylactic shock,” Betty says as soon as Bruce is done speaking, and he nods assent.

The boy’s breathing barely qualifies as a wheeze, grating and shallow, his skin dotted with sweat and flushed pink. Automatically reaching for his bag, Bruce promptly curses instead when his hands encounter nothing but empty air. That tone is universal, and the woman he’d been speaking to—presumably the boy’s mother—lets out a strangled sob. He shoots her an apologetic look that’s probably intended to be consoling.

“I don’t have—”

“We do,” Tony replies.

Grateful to have something to do besides stand there uselessly, he reaches for the pack he’d dropped on the ground. The field med kit, the one Bruce had designed with the team’s rather unique medical needs in mind, is tucked into one of the outside pouches. While Tony would never admit it aloud, Steve’s insistence that they use gear bags designed for combat medics is instantaneously brilliant.

“EpiPen and antihistamine,” Bruce says, gratitude infusing his voice, and Betty is rolling the boy’s sleeve up on autopilot before Bruce stops her. “Thigh, quicker response.”

Tony pushes himself out of their way, focuses on keeping the bystanders far back enough to give Bruce and Betty room to work. Prior to knowing Bruce, he’d only met Betty at a few conferences in passing, and in the years since, she is the one topic on which Bruce has been consistently reticent. Now, though, despite the circumstances, there’s something perfectly fluid in how they move around one another, seamlessly effective and never interfering with the other’s space.

Without missing a beat, Betty depresses the plunger on the EpiPen, and Bruce finds a vein with envious ease in the crook of the boy’s elbow for an IV line. For lack of a pole or even so much as a fencepost, he just holds the bag up until the young man who’d called for the ambulance takes it from him wordlessly. He nods his thanks. Then they just wait.

For a few seconds, each of which feels like a year with every drip of the IV, nothing happens; then their patient’s breathing begins to ease, slowly but inexorably. The strain bleeding out of his body is nearly tangible, not unlike the relief that ripples through the crowd. Bruce moves to put his ear to the boy’s chest before Betty rolls her eyes and hands him the stethoscope and BP cuff out of the pack. She gets a slightly sheepish look in answer, and then, a minute later, a tentative smile.

“Fucking hell,” Tony says, shoulders slumping with the sudden cessation of tension. “Let’s never do this again.” They’ve fought aliens and invaders and scientific experiments gone horribly wrong, but he unfailingly prefers all of those to these moments, when one life is in their hands and all the brute force in the world won’t suffice to change the course of luck.

“I second that,” Betty says, holding the boy’s hand in hers. It’s as much for comfort as to monitor the beat of his pulse at his wrist.

“Yeah,” Bruce breathes out, raking a hand through his hair. To the people around them, he offers, “У реду je,” and relief suffuses the woman’s face. She’s still weeping, but she offers them each a shaky smile and a heavily accented “Thank you” as she clasps their hands in turn.

Smiling, Betty pushes herself to her feet and motions for the woman to take the place she’s just vacated. Still thanking her—all of them—the woman takes the boy’s hands in hers.

“He going to be okay?” Tony asks. Their patient looks like he’s on the verge of falling asleep, skin still flushed and expression groggy, but breathing easier and expression more alert.

“Yeah,” Bruce says, pushing the boy’s hair away from his forehead, “he should be just fine.” Now that the emergency has passed, there’s a faint tremor in his hands, and he refuses to look at either Betty or Tony.

Opening his mouth to respond, Tony shuts up instead when Betty beats him to it. “We need to stop meeting like this, Bruce,” she informs him sardonically, and he laughs, breathless and unsteady as though she’s startled it out of him.

Shaking his head, he risks a glance up at her. “Can’t handle the excitement, Ross?” Bruce tosses back, a hint of challenge in his voice and a glint of amusement in his eye, but the look Betty pins him with changes tone as quickly as the atmosphere of their audience had when the boy began breathing again.

“Oh, I can handle anything,” she says, sober and pointed, “and maybe it’s time you understood that.” It isn’t a reprimand, or so much as the faintest reproof, but there’s an unwonted intensity that says she’s referring to more than spontaneous medical emergencies as clearly as if she’d painted the words on a neon sign.

The sound of approaching sirens draws Bruce’s attention to the road, in the opposite direction from which Betty and Tony had come, but he acknowledges, “Yeah, maybe it is.” The smile that plays at the corners of his mouth is so small it’s nearly unnoticeable, but Betty eyes it critically before she nods.

“Not that this reunion wasn’t my plan in the first place,” Tony says, stepping forward and starting to repack their bag, “but next time you decide to leave and set a record as the world’s greenest globetrotter until we meet in circumstances out of an Agatha Christie novel, can you just…y’know, _not_?”

“I second that, too,” Betty offers.

“Of course you do, I make perfect sense,” Tony scoffs.

This time the smile actually reaches Bruce’s eyes. “The world is ending,” he says to the grass, laughter in his voice as he shakes his head.

“Catch up, Brucie-pie,” Tony says with forced cheer, “the world is _always_ ending when we’re around. Sadly, running off to bumfuck nowhere is not the off switch. Which we can discuss in detail later, because right now we have a very private, very stealthy, indeterminately legal plane to catch.”

“Tony,” Bruce says, exasperation coloring his voice, but he’s cut off by the arrival of the medics.

The next several minutes of their lives are therefore occupied by a frenzy of multilingual explanations about the teenager, the people with him, and a bevy of creative lies about the “convenient” appearance of three foreign strangers with medical knowledge and equipment at just the right moment. Tony holds his own through a combination of charm and flat out talking so much that they’re all but begging him to shut up. They all know that in any garden-variety encounter, their unusual trio would raise more questions than answers, but the sheer chaos of the situation and the gratitude of the locals gives them enough leeway to slip aside.

“I think we should move before they figure out we’re packing more than hiking supplies,” Betty mumbles in Tony’s ear as he surreptitiously shoulders said pack, and together they draw Bruce away from the grateful hugs and pats on the back, returning the way they’d come.

Ten minutes later, they’re heading down a dirt track that doesn’t look like it’s been traversed by anything other than occasional wildlife in ten years. There’s nothing but open fields around them, the small group of houses they’d just departed a mere dot in the distance.

“ETA twenty minutes,” Tony says, glancing at his phone. “Would’ve been faster, but I told JARVIS to keep it stealthy—last thing we need is to draw attention. ‘Avengers invade Serbia’ is not something I want in the headlines.”

Since they left the farm, Bruce has been quiet. Which, Bruce is always quiet, but this is different, the weighty, oppressive sort of silence that only serves to amplify everything left unspoken. He’s fidgeting—with the straps of his own pack, the edges of his sleeves—fingers twisting together as he stares resolutely at anything besides his companions. Tony simply waits him out: he already has a speech ready, whether or not Bruce speaks first, but they’ve got time.

As if on cue, Bruce inhales sharply, and Tony can practically see the words on the tip of his tongue like a press release.

“Shut up.”

Both Tony and Bruce turn to stare at Betty in surprise, but she’s not even looking at either of them. Tony presses his lips together, biting back amusement, but Bruce only makes that more difficult when he stares open-mouthed at her for a long second. He draws in another breath and tries to start again, but Betty shakes her head, dark ponytail swinging across her back and over her shoulder with the force of it.

“Don’t you even dare, Banner.”

This time Bruce turns a beseeching look on Tony—whether he’s looking for help or an answer or a loan is sort of even odds—who simply shrugs. He dated Pepper Potts for three years; he knows better.

“Betty,” Bruce tries for a third time, and finally she turns to look at him. If the look is more of a glare, at least it’s something.

“For once in your goddamn life, please shut up,” she says, eyes glinting with that same fire Tony saw earlier. “Aren’t you sick of this?” Her tone is vehement as she gestures to the emptiness around them. “Because I for one am sick and tired and frustrated. In my—in _our_ —line of work, when an experiment keeps failing over and over again, you wipe the board clean and start again. You’ve been running away for years and always end up with the same conclusion, a failed experiment you’re too stubborn to admit isn’t working!”

“It’s not that easy to wipe it clean, you know that,” Bruce protests, “not with this.” Despite his choice of word, it’s weak, laced only with the shadow of a fight, an undercurrent of something that might once have been there but has since been lost.

“It’s easier than this,” Betty retorts, but then she steps forward, right into Bruce’s space.

He flinches like he thinks she’s going to slap him, or maybe like he’s afraid of hulking out right then and there, but she ignores it, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close. He doesn’t fight it, even though it takes a moment or two for his arms to settle tentatively around her waist. Fiddling with his phone, Tony turns and takes a step away in an attempt to give them a semblance of privacy; it’s not quite feeling like a third wheel, but he feels like an intruder all the same.

“Come back,” Betty implores, quietly enough that Tony would have missed it had they been anywhere with ambient noise. “Not for me, not for Tony, not for your team—that’s not why I’m here. I’m not some princess come to save what you think is a monster. I’m here to remind you what I know you already know: running is never going to be a solution.”

“It’s easier,” Bruce mumbles in reply, and while Tony can’t see it, he can practically _hear_ Betty’s eye roll in tandem with his own.

“No, it’s not,” she counters, “it’s just lonelier.”

For long minutes, there’s nothing but silence, enough that Tony thinks he might have to go into his own speech after all. He’s rehearsed the damn thing until he could say it in his sleep, he might as well. But just as he’s gearing up for it, Bruce sighs and murmurs, “Okay,” voice threaded with relief and terror and a million other things. But there’s also a note of determination that Tony hasn’t heard from him since he first reappeared in Manhattan on that battered, borrowed motorcycle, and _that_ is what they need. Looking back at them, Tony catches Bruce’s eye over Betty’s shoulder and grins. If it’s a touch smug, it’s not like Bruce would expect anything different, and he just smiles back. It’s less strained than it had been, which Tony counts as a victory.

“Good,” Betty says decisively, finally pulling away. “Because I came all this way and hiked across the middle of Serbia—and not even the part I _wanted_ to see, mind you—and if you think after all that that you’re not coming home with us, you are so very mistaken.”

Bruce laughs, startled and open, and lifts his hands in a placating gesture. Tony smiles, the quiet hope he’d been cautiously nursing since he first saw his friend back at that farm blossoming into something more than a nebulous thought.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand already,” he says, getting approving nods in answer. “If I don’t see another dirt road for the rest of my life, it’ll be too soon.”

“You owe me the biggest cup of coffee, Stark,” Betty declares, and Tony throws a grin her way right as his phone chimes loudly. He can just barely make out the sound of the jet’s engines in the distance, so he grins wider and pockets the phone.

“I’ll make you Lavazza’s sole shareholder, Ross,” he says, then purses his lips thoughtfully. “Hey, ever thought about a job with Stark Industries? I’ve heard they’re hiring.”

\----------

 _11 April 2015_ ; _New York, New Avengers facility—location: classified_

“You can’t complain about the results,” Tony points out logically.

Phil mutters something that sounds distinctly uncomplimentary in what might be Greek. “Want to bet on that?”

“No,” Sam interjects, then adds for good measure, “sir,” and Phil looks down in an unsuccessful attempt to hide a smile.

Ignoring all of them, Tony asks, “What kind of timeline are we looking at, externally?”

“It depends,” Phil replies. “We’re obviously not admitting we have Barnes in custody, and while the IC at large can make all the guesses they want, you guys hid your paper trail well.” He sounds grudgingly approving. “That said, we’ve probably got less than a month before we lose the ability to justify our excuses, and with Sokovia so close behind maybe not even that. So it’s not tomorrow, but it’s not ideal. In this job, though—”

“It’s a lifetime,” Steve finishes for him, exhaustion heavy in his voice, and Phil nods apologetically.

“Precisely.” Before he can speak further, _if_ he was going to speak further, there’s the muted buzz of his phone in his pocket, and he glances at it, then back up at the rest of them. “Tony, they want you down in medical. Steve, Sam—Maria and I would like to formally debrief you and Natasha before we go any further.”

Pushing himself out of his chair, Tony offers, “The conference room two doors down would probably be less cramped than this office.” He knows Phil knows; he also knows Phil will recognize the gesture for what it is. “Maria and Nat still with Barnes?” he asks, and when Phil nods, he continues, “I’ll head over and then send them up.”

While Steve and Sam turn down the hall into the aforementioned conference room, Tony starts to make his way to medical, then thinks better of it and retraces his steps to Phil’s office, walking in like he owns it. (He does, actually, but that’s beside the point.) Phil’s standing behind his desk, pocketing his keys, and he looks up, an expression of mild surprise on his face when Tony enters.

“You just left,” he says unnecessarily.

“I’m so glad death hasn’t diminished your powers of observation.” Tony drops back into the chair he’d vacated only minutes before, cocking his head to the left and giving Phil a long look. “I won’t ask for that long story now,” he says after a beat, sobering, “though I fully expect it when we have one less crisis at hand. But seriously, it’s good to see you, y’know, breathing again.”

Seeming to sense that he’ll be there for a while if he remains standing, Phil retakes his seat and cracks a somewhat cynical half-smile. “It’s good to _be_ breathing again,” he admits. “Mostly, and I will tell you that story at some point, but you didn’t come back here in the midst of all this just to give me your good wishes.”

“No,” Tony acknowledges, leaning back. “The Inhumans.”

Phil doesn’t quite sigh, but the ghost of the gesture is there in the set of his shoulders, as though he thinks he should have expected that. Rather than answer directly, he says instead, “You were less surprised to see me than you seemed.” It’s a statement, not a question, and he holds Tony’s gaze until the engineer nods once.

“I had suspicions,” Tony confirms, “what with the rest of the information that was coming up.”

Phil directs a flat look at him. “I’d say that information—all of it—is highly classified and secured under encryption the NSA doesn’t think has been invented yet, but details like that won’t bother you, would they?”

Tony simply shrugs, not bothering to answer a rhetorical question. It had been child’s play, all things considered, the work of a long coffee break and two laptops.

“Should I—should _we_ —be worried?” he asks.

Phil makes no effort to withhold the sigh this time. “You Tony Stark, you Iron Man, or you the Avengers?”

“I am Iron Man, remember?” Tony replies, a statement bereft of its customary bravado.

“As if I could forget,” Phil retorts, not unkindly. “I was _there_.”

He, too, leans back in his chair, tipping his head back toward the tiled ceiling. There’s a minuscule slump to his shoulders, unnoticeable in a less careful man, and Tony takes stock of the extent of the agent’s exhaustion for the first time since the shock of discovering he was alive. Faint lines are pressed in around his eyes and mouth, the barest threads of gray visible at his temples if you think to look. Dying hadn’t done Phil any greater favors than it had Tony.

“It’s handled,” Phil continues, and then pauses. “For now.”

“And later?”

The agent’s face contorts in something between a grimace and a scowl. “Ask the X-Men how well it went for them.”

Tony winces reflexively: he knows exactly how it had gone for them. The backlash, the hate crimes, the fear from the parts of the population that had once thought them “normal”, whatever the hell that meant. Having decided to take the world on himself, to take what had been inflicted upon him and transmute it into a superpower, he was altogether too well acquainted with the toxicity of society’s reactions. And he had had privilege on his side—he was white, wealthy, and male—something not available to the majority of the mutants, and now the Inhumans.

Rather than say any of those things aloud, he offers instead, “What can we do?”

“For now, leave it to us. Pretend you never heard of any of this.”

“And if you fail?”

“We won’t,” Phil says, almost fiercely.

Tony’s answering smile is sympathetic rather than superior, and he taps his forefinger lightly against the arc reactor. “If the data is right, this is bigger than you.”

With another sigh, deeper this time, Phil gives him a tired smile. “When has it ever been anything else?”

Tony breathes out a short, sharp laugh that’s only fractionally amused. “Fuck,” he declares, “I miss when the villains used to be run-of-the-mill arms dealers. Kidnappers. Hell, murderers.” He shakes his head. “It’s a sad state of affairs when those are the easy ones.”

“Tell me about it,” Phil huffs, his lips quirking in an expression even dryer. Had Tony held any lingering reservations about this truly being Phil Coulson, they’d be gone now.

“If you need the team—” Tony begins, but Phil’s already shaking his head before the words are half out of his mouth.

“No,” he says. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but no. This is a fight that’s happening in the shadows. It needs to stay there, for as long as possible, and the Avengers need to keep doing what they were made for. You’re the good guys; you fight in the light.”

Tony’s lips twist down in distaste. “Yeah, well, I think I’ve well and truly fucked that one up.”

Shaking his head again, Phil repeats, “No.” Tony looks at him sharply, and the other man shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve listened to the comm feeds from Sokovia, I know what happened. Your team is still everything I hoped—I _knew_ —you would be.”

They’re harboring at least one fugitive and facing allegations of mass murder, and that’s only before breakfast. In spite of that, Tony finds himself smiling, the gesture coming easy in a way it hasn’t in what feels like months. “Death has made an optimist of you, Phil,” he accuses.

Phil shrugs once more, smiles back. “I always was one, Tony, just like you.” Before Tony can muster an appropriate denouncement to that, Phil pushes himself back to his feet and waves a hand toward the door. “Now, I need to get to that debrief, and you need to get to medical, preferably before they come hunt the both of us down.”

“Eh,” Tony says dismissively, “they don’t have enough to do anyway.”

As he steps into the hallway, he can still hear Phil snickering.

 

**iii. picture changes but not the frame**

_13 April 2015_ ; _New York, New Avengers facility—location: classified_

It was too easy.

Objectively, Steve had known that: after the thought had first occurred to him, when they were still standing in an abandoned Romanian warehouse, it’s been a looming, unnerving specter. Objectively, he’s been waiting for the Winter Soldier to reemerge from the moment they’d boarded the Quinjet.

Subjectively, none of that means shit.

Because subjectively, Steve had let himself be lured for just one tantalizing moment into believing the fantasy that things might be okay, that Bucky would be _Bucky_ again and this would be easier than they’d thought. He doesn’t need anyone to tell him he’s a fool; he’s told himself innumerable times already. If only that made it sting less, made the ache in his chest recede at all.

A handful of SHIELD’s still-trustworthy medical personnel, overseen by Bruce and one of the scientists in residence on Phil’s Bus, Jemma Simmons, have been in and out with Bucky in the two days since they got back. Helen Cho had made her own return to the States to join them within twenty hours of Bruce’s arrival from Manhattan (and while Steve has the sneaking suspicion her rather precipitous arrival was Tony’s doing, he can’t get anyone to confirm or deny it).

Much to everyone’s surprise it’s all proceeded largely without incident. The only hiccup had occurred upon Bruce’s initial visit, no more than a double-take on Bucky’s part and an odd look on Bruce’s face, as if he’d seen Bucky somewhere before but couldn’t place him. Since it passed as soon as it arose without anything more substantive than an awkward pause, no one placed much stock in it.

Helen and the members of her team who’d survived their encounter with Ultron are still in the midst of rebuilding. Some of them, Helen herself included, have yet to fully recover from their own injuries. Though the Stark Relief Foundation is still in Seoul, Tony had financed the lion’s share of the renovations and repairs to Helen’s lab out of his own pocket despite her fervent protests. With it had come the provisions to rebuild the Cradle they had essentially demolished in the process of bringing Vision to life, and as Steve passes by one of the labs he overhears Helen suggest it—or at least the portable version Tony still has at the Tower, for Bucky.

“You think you can rebuild his _arm_?” Jemma asks in shock and not a little excitement at the prospect, and Helen shrugs while Steve blinks in stupefaction, because the thought had never occurred to him.

He’s not eavesdropping, per se: the door is open, and the room is all but made entirely of glass. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to entirely silence the nagging thought in the back of his head that they must be sugarcoating their conclusions when they talk to him. So he stays where he is, just out of view but within earshot. It’s not fair, and he knows it, but he remains where he is nonetheless.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” Cho replies. “We’ve never tried, but it’s theoretically possible with the full system. The AI was our first attempt to wholly recreate anatomy, and from a purely technical perspective that seems to have worked well enough. Right now, though, I was thinking in terms of immediate repair; the original amputation was far from clean.”

“Don’t,” Tony says immediately, with startling finality; then he clarifies, “with Barnes, I mean, not in general.”

Bruce shoots Tony an odd look that Steve just barely catches. The team at large hasn’t yet been told about Bucky’s suspected ties to Howard and Maria Stark, due to the simple fact that none of the people who _do_ know have had the energy to spare for that conversation. Bruce, however, Tony had apparently told a few days after they’d convinced him to come back to New York. The expression currently on his face suggests he’s trying not to say aloud, “don’t make this personal.”

Sighing, Tony sets something down on the table in front of him with a low thudding noise. “I don’t know the details of whatever the fuck torture methods his handlers used, and I seriously doubt we’ll ever know the full scope, but I know enough about cryo and distrust to guarantee that will not go over well.”

There’s a weighty pause, and then Helen asks, “He’s been in full cryostasis?”

“As I understand it, multiple times.” Bruce, this time. “It seems they kept their operatives…well, on ice, for lack of a better term, between assignments. According to Natasha, they put him under more than anyone else.”

Whatever Helen says next is in rapid-fire Korean that Steve doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to know the words to recognize swearing when he hears it. Jemma’s sharp exhale of, “Bloody fucking hell” sums it up nicely.

“Okay, so the Cradle isn’t an option,” Helen says, somewhat grimly. “The one I left in your lab is still intact though, yes?”

“It is,” Tony says, but hesitates, evidently vacillating between leaving it at that or giving them something that vaguely more clarifying. “You all know how I got this,” he says at last, and Steve hears the distinct, bass chime of him tapping the arc reactor casing. “Nobody tried rebooting my head, but even so, after I got back I let basically no one near it; still don’t, not really. Barnes has been a million times more stable than any of us could have anticipated, but I would be willing to bet most of my bank accounts that if you tried to get him into any version of the device, we’d have the Winter Soldier back before you could say ‘boo’. All told, I can’t say I’d really blame him.”

Helen winces, though she’s out of Tony’s current line of sight enough that he might have missed it. She’s a pioneering scientist and a highly proficient doctor with an impressively extensive list of surgical expertise. It therefore wasn’t unexpected that, when she’d first begun working with them, she clearly wanted to get a closer look at the reactor but was too polite to ask, as much from cultural norms as respect for a stranger’s privacy. After she’d been there for almost five months, Tony had finally shown her the old reactor casing and let her examine the live one in his chest. If she’s not trying to find a tactful way to apologize for that now, Steve’s a horse’s ass.

Intentionally or not, Bruce spares her the awkwardness: Tony is as matter-of-fact as a person could probably get about the reactor, but he doesn’t talk about it. He talks about its impact on his life even less, and people apologizing to him for its existence just spikes his temper.

“You’re working on a new prosthetic, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tony replies.

He’s been running a thousand different diagnostics and a plethora of other scans Steve can’t begin to follow almost nonstop since they got back. It’s how he found the cyanide capsules and a handful of other poisons embedded under the skin of Bucky’s shoulder, just below where flesh met metal. Those were easy enough to remove, and if they had been set for remote activation, it had failed. Thank god for the Russians and their predictability.

Tony continues, “But right now all I’m doing _to him directly_ is making sure there isn’t some trip-wire that will kill either him or us. The prototype will be ready whenever he wants it, but I’m certainly not going to push it on him.” Then he changes the subject, asking, “Is he otherwise cleared, physically speaking?”

Helen chuckles, not entirely out of amusement. “I think he’s probably healthier than everyone in this room,” she says, half-disbelieving. “There are some minor chemical imbalances, most of which can be attributed to environment, and he could stand to gain a pound or twenty, but given his handler’s treatment, I expected some very skewed labs. Ran everything I could think of and then some, but he has nearly perfect numbers across the board, from his CBC to the full metabolic panel.”

“I agree,” Jemma adds. “Short of another remotely-triggered kill switch, he’ll probably outlive all of us. I’m far more concerned about his psychological state.”

“Xavier’s due back from—Denmark? I think?—next week,” Tony replies, “and in the meantime Sam and Melinda and even Phil have been in to assess him with the…I don’t know, three non-Nazi psychics and two shrinks SHIELD has left on its payroll.”

Quietly, Steve slips away. He’s heard everything he was conceivably looking for, no matter how terrible a person it might make him, and he’s either been on the other side of the glass or in the interrogation rooms themselves as often as he’s allowed. Unfortunately, that only means he can never miss the blend of fear and anger roiling unceasingly through his friend’s eyes. He keeps hoping that will fade. He keeps being proven wrong.

Trying to talk himself into leaving—into going home or doing paperwork or really anything at all except staying here and trying to talk to Bucky again—Steve stops for a while to watch the class of recruits Carol and Rhodey have out on the fields. They work well together, and it’s not hard to see why they make a good couple. The students have only been there about two weeks, and by that measure they’re doing pretty decently, but Steve can’t help smiling. Though they’re inaudible through the thick, heavy glass, experience thus far has quite clearly demonstrated that while Rhodey and Carol might both be commissioned officers, they can bellow with the best of the drill sergeants.

Finally, he concedes the masquerade of convincing himself to do otherwise and resumes his trek down to the secure holding area Tony had built into their new facility, seven levels below ground. (It was smart planning, there’s no denying that, but it doesn’t mean Steve has to like it). It isn’t a replacement for the Fridge, and they’re still trying to figure out what the hell to do about _that_ ; it _is_ designed to provide temporary—which, by their current definitions, is anywhere between six months and two years—containment for most of the enhanced individuals they’ve encountered, with as much room for adjustment as effective security will allow. The lowest level of the structure, there’s another eight feet of concrete between it and the next level up. The all-white color scheme, fluorescent lighting, and vast expanses of glass feel sterile, more evocative of hospitals than prisons—but the glass is four feet thick, soundproof, bulletproof, can transition from transparent to opaque, and is overlaid on the inside with an electrified grid that can be activated with the flip of a switch. Nor is there a single piece of metal throughout the entire floor, by some magical trick of engineering (thank you, Magneto); and if anyone gets the clever idea to try tunneling their way out, they’ll run into another six feet of concrete with its own electrified grid on the other side.

Fury’s had the Raft—essentially a floating supermax prison isolated in the middle of an undisclosed ocean—under construction for the past six months. It seems like a useful addition to their resources, but they still needed something accessible without a helicopter. And so the Academy had evolved to include an unusually flexible, extremely high-tech, almost impermeable jail in the basement. Taking into account the fact that Hydra’s sleeper agents infiltrated the majority of SHIELD’s secure facilities, the closed-feed security system is never monitored by fewer than four of their top agents. It's…thorough. And possibly overkill, but no one can say it's unwarranted. All told, it seems to be working strangely well for the small handful of individuals who have been moved here, several of whom had originally been taken into custody by Phil’s team.

This is the third time Steve’s come down here since they’ve been back, and already he could do the pre-ID, eight-factor biometric authorisation process practically in his sleep. Hell, by now he could recite the names and backgrounds and families of every guard rotation, and he’s fairly certain they could have done the same for him even if _hadn’t_ been Captain America.

He’s on the exceedingly short short-list of Bucky’s cleared visitors, and during each visit he’s tried to start a conversation, get a reaction, have any sort of interaction whatsoever. But since Suceava, Bucky’s said maybe five cumulative words to him, and he can’t honestly tell if Russia’s former assassin is angry with him or afraid of him, or perhaps both. He also doesn’t know how to fix any of it, because every time he tries to apologize, to make amends, it ends in uncomfortable, if not outright stony, silence. Not for the first time, Steve can’t suppress the irrational wish that Bucky would yell at him or try to kill him again or basically do _anything_ else. That, at least, he’d know what to do with.

Standing by the small table at the far right of Bucky’s cell, Steve opens his mouth to say some variant of “I’m sorry”, for the five thousandth time. He’s interrupted by a knock on the compartment door, just before Tony pokes his head into the room.

“Hey.” He tips a mostly friendly nod in Bucky’s direction, then turns to Steve. “Cap, I need to borrow you for a second.”

“Can it wait?” Steve almost snaps. Distantly, he can hear the acidity in his tone, is acutely aware Tony’s done absolutely nothing to deserve it, but he’s already swallowed down too many silent questions demanding a voice he can’t grant.

“No,” Tony replies, as though there had been absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in Steve’s tone.

Gritting his teeth, Steve steps into the hallway, where Tony’s standing to the right of the door and out of Bucky’s line of sight. The second he hears the snick of the locking mechanism, he turns on Tony, frustration in need of an outlet locking tight as missile coordinates on the one target in range.

“What?” he demands, barely resisting the urge to cross his arms over his chest. He’d been hoping for reasonable; if anything, he only sounds worse than he had when Tony opened the door. “My best friend hates me—and he should—so what exactly is so important that you needed to drag me out here?”

Tony gives it a beat, then says softly, “Are you done?”

Steve would swear he feels his jaw hit his sternum. He’s heard that tone before, directed at criminals and obnoxious politicians and the arrogant elite, but never at him. Granted, it’s more compassionate here, mitigated by less disdain and icy fury, but it nonetheless conveys “you’re being deliberately dense, now shut the fuck up and listen” effectively enough. In that moment, at least, it’s enough to stun him into silence.

Eyes softening, Tony sighs, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “I pulled you out because he doesn’t need apologies right now.”

“What—”

Holding up a hand, Tony shakes his head. “Let me finish. You said yesterday, too, that you think he hates you, that he blames you.” For lack of anything better to say, Steve simply nods, a terse, abbreviated motion. “He’s not afraid of you,” Tony tells him quietly. “He’s afraid of himself—he doesn’t trust himself to _not_ do more damage to the one person from his past he remembers in spite of Russia trying to strip that away from him.”

“But he—” Steve cuts himself off as the certainty in Tony’s voice finally registers in his brain. “How would you know?”

The other man meets his eyes steadily, speech and expression alike perfectly level and painfully prosaic. “Because that’s the same look I saw in the mirror every day for years after Afghanistan.”

Steve opens his mouth to respond. A moment later, he shuts it again. There _is_ no response to that.

“You blame yourself,” Tony says into the yawning silence, “and _he_ blames _him_ self. Each of you thinks everyone else should be blaming you, too. You’re both very smart people, but you’re also very wrong.”

“You still blame yourself,” Steve points out before he can stop himself.

Tony’s answering smile is soft and a little sad and rife with so much understanding it breaks Steve’s heart. Reaching out, he rests his hand on Steve’s forearm for a moment. “I never said I was the example to follow. Don’t make my mistakes.”

\----------

_Manhattan, New York_

Sunset finds Steve brooding out on the Tower balcony, where he has been for hours. His sketchbook lies open on his lap, the page conspicuously empty. He isn’t even certain how long he’s been sitting there, only that he’d gone out right after he and Tony got back into Manhattan. He’s been trying to draw, to do something— _anything_ —with his hands since he sat down; the bin conspicuously filled with crumpled sheets of paper beside him says he hasn’t been successful.

Tony’s words ring in his ears like an echo reverberating across a canyon: “That’s the same look I saw in the mirror every day for years after Afghanistan.” Steve should have thought of that, and he feels guilty that he hadn’t. Even worse, Tony had disappeared into his workshop after they’d returned to the Tower, and Steve isn’t at all sure whether he’s according Steve space and time to process, or if something has been irreparably damaged between them. Nor does he know what he would say if Tony showed up, or, frankly, if he even wants that. Right now, he’s reduced to a turbulent storm of confusion and guilt and frustration and anger, all of which only burns hotter for its lack of a target or any semblance of a plan.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that reading in the dark was bad for your eyesight?” someone says to his left, from the vicinity of the French doors, and Steve nearly jumps out of his seat. Had he been another foot closer to the railing, he might have gone right over the edge.

“Thanks for the heart attack,” he manages after a moment. “I think that’s a greater threat to my health than bad lighting.”

Rhodey snorts, coming over to sit in the chair that occupies the space between Steve and the door. “Touché,” he acknowledges with a nod. Then, with a tone Steve would call casual if he hadn’t gotten to know the other man in the past few months, he adds, “So how’s Barnes doing?”

Tapping the end of his pencil against the paper, Steve bites back a sigh. Then he bites back the sharp response that wants to follow. “Okay, all things considered.” He pauses. “Maybe. Sort of. I don’t know.”

“Sounds about right,” Rhodey replies, with an unexpected degree of equanimity. Steve looks at him askance, thrown by his complete lack of reaction. “War in the Middle East?” the colonel suggests by way of explanation. “PTSD, combat trauma, all the shit that messes with your head and seems to be doing it just for fun?”

“…Ah.”

“So why do you look like someone killed your dog?”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“Stop dodging the question.” When Steve glares halfheartedly at him, Rhodey grins and points to himself with one hand. “Tony Stark’s best friend. You think I don’t know deflection when I see it?”

That one’s hard to argue with (okay, it’s impossible to argue with), and Steve can’t quite help the rueful laugh, however abbreviated. “I think—it feels like—he’s angry. With me. Afraid of me, even. And I keep coming back to that day on the damn train, trying to figure out what I could have done differently.” Fixing his gaze on the distant, blinking red light atop one of the skyscrapers, Steve shrugs awkwardly when Rhodey doesn’t say anything. “Tony said Bucky blames himself, not me. And…”

“It doesn’t quite make sense?” Rhodey offers while Steve’s still searching for an appropriate description.

“Yeah.”

Rhodey nods, fingers tapping a light staccato against the arm of his chair. “Tony’s right.”

“I know he—wait, what?”

“He’s right,” Rhodey repeats, humor laced through his voice. “And he should know, I suppose.”

Brows pulling together, Steve frowns and tries to parse that, then shakes his head. “You lost me.”

“Did you ever see any of the footage from the Stark Expo the year Tony got back?”

“Kind of. Hammer showed up with a bunch of drones, they tried to kill people, a lot of things blew up, right?”

Rhodey snorts. “In a nutshell, yes,” he agrees, and then he sobers, lacing his hands together behind his head. “I was Hammer’s…centerpiece, or whatever you want to call it, in the suit I had after Tony’s disaster of a birthday party.”

Rather than responding, Steve simply rolls his hand in a “continue” gesture. _This_ story he has heard—everyone from Pepper to Natasha to SHIELD to Tony himself had told him bits and pieces. Mostly, the emerging picture only furthered Steve’s growing conviction that had SHIELD not provided his first briefing on Stark Industries and the family, he and Tony might have gotten off to a better start. If Steve had been dying like that, for the same reasons and with no way to stop it, he’d probably have thrown caution to the wind, too.

“The guy Hammer had hired—well, stolen, staged a jailbreak for, was harboring as a fugitive, whatever—to work on the suits hacked the controls mid-presentation,” Rhodey continues. “So one minute I’m standing on a stage trying to imagine as many ways as possible to kill Justin Hammer very, very slowly. The next I’m pointing a gun at my best friend and the suit isn’t listening to me anymore.”

Nodding slowly, Steve makes a valiant effort to figure out where Rhodey’s taking this. He’s positive he fails, and the tiny quirk of Rhodey’s mouth suggests it wasn’t that subtle.

“The worst part was, this thing that’s basically a Gatling gun mounted on my shoulder is pointed right at Tony, and he actually has to ask, ‘is that you?’, like I’d ever do that voluntarily. I thought that suit was fantastic the moment I saw it, and no way would I have turned one down if he offered it to me, but I didn’t want to get it the way I did, and I sure as hell wasn’t ever going to kill him over it.”

Wincing in sympathy, Steve manages to conjure a lukewarm, “That sounds like Tony.”

“I know,” Rhodey says, all wry fondness born of time and familiarity. “He came back from Afghanistan a different person. Not all of that was bad, but expanding the part of him that thinks he has to carry the weight of the world and pretend it’s a featherweight? That was definitely less than good.

“Everything he knew was somehow tainted, and I think he was expecting—still does, kind of—to keep losing, to keep leaving destruction behind him. Stane made the sales, but as far as Tony’s concerned it was his name on the paperwork and the crates and the labels, which made it all his responsibility.” He sighs, adding bitterly, “Breadcrumbs of the shit legacy Howard left him.”

He doesn’t apologize for insulting Steve’s friend. For that, Steve’s grateful: if Rhodey hadn’t said it, he probably would have, and he doubts he’d have managed to be half so polite.

“So when he says Bucky’s afraid of himself—”

“He knows exactly what he’s talking about,” Rhodey concludes, all the confirmation Steve wishes he didn’t have.

Tipping his head back, Steve sets his sketchbook aside on the small glass table between their chairs and heaves a sigh. He’s always loved the New York City skyline, even with a seventy-year gap, but in times like this he misses the stars. “He’s an idiot,” he says, and even he can hear the plaintive note that creeps into his voice.

Much to his surprise, Rhodey laughs, deep and genuinely amused. “The man is a card-carrying genius, but when it comes to personal _anything_ he has the self-awareness of a cabbage,” he agrees, then pauses in consideration. “Actually, no, that’s an insult to cabbages,” he amends, and Steve cracks, laughter bubbling up in his throat because it’s so damn true.

When they’re both back to breathing normally again, Rhodey shoots him a long, searching look; Steve wonders what the hell he expects to find.

“If you ever tell anyone I said this—well, any of this, because Tony will throw me off this balcony and I swear to god I’ll take you with me if he does, but this next thing in particular—I will not only deny it, I will murder you very painfully, and no one will ever find your body,” Rhodey says at last, and that’s an abrupt segue if Steve ever heard one. He’s still trying to parse the various verbs and pronouns when Rhodey continues, “But whatever this thing is that you two have going, and seriously, I don’t need the details—” He grins, and it’s infectious; Steve can’t help but respond in kind. “—it’s good. He’s happy, and that’s…well, let’s go with ‘rare’. But he’ll push you away, try to protect you from himself.” He shrugs. “So whenever he starts being more of an idiot than usual? Just remember that.”

Slowly, Steve nods, can’t help but think of Obie and Malibu again and wish it didn’t all fit so well together in the world’s most macabre puzzle. “Thank you. I think.”

Rhodey waves it off. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you, etc.; you know how the speech goes,” he says, tone a little too cheerful in Steve’s opinion.

“You realize you’ve just threatened to kill me three times in maybe a minute, right?” he asks, one eyebrow raised, and Rhodey snorts.

“Damn, I’m slipping in my old age,” he drawls. Steve throws a crumpled-up piece of paper at him; Rhodey reaches across the table to punch him in the arm. “And that’s the extent of my ability as both relationship counselor and threatening best friend, which is good since you’d think with all the money he spends he’d have chairs out here that don’t make your ass go numb in ten minutes.” He pushes himself to his feet with a wince, looks at Steve, shakes his head. “I don’t even know how you’re still sitting there, but for the love of god, come inside.”

Lacking any worthwhile excuse to stay (and Rhodey’s not wrong, the chairs really are rather terrible), Steve does as he’s told.

 

**iv. some people call it taking shelter; she called it sweet revenge**

_18 April 2015_ ; _New York, New Avengers facility—location: classified_

Bucky’s been Stateside for a grand total of eight days, and none of the team has left the New Avengers facility for longer than an hour since they were first called to Phil’s office. It’s been a litany of interrogations, psychic as well as standard, and health checks and weapons checks and everything under the sun checks, searching for the trojan horse that has, so far, failed to show itself.

Now Bucky’s in with the psychics again—Jean Grey and Charles Xavier; they broke out the big guns this time—while Steve stands in the corner of the mostly bare room as backup or a memory prompt or a bodyguard or some combination thereof. From the other side of the one-way glass, Natasha watches the silent conversation play out, not bothering to flip the switch for audio by her hand. In her head, she hears the ones she’d had when Clint first brought her in, a turned asset instead of a confirmed hit. She is undeniably good at compartmentalization: it’s what she was trained for, but, like they say, normal is relative.

She had had a mere handful of years in her childhood that did not belong to Red Room. With a few exceptions, she had been too young to remember much of those years, and in hindsight, perhaps even those had been designed to groom her for the program. And when your formative years are occupied by learning how best to be a ruthless, silent, highly effective assassin, that _is_ your normal, in the same way that, if you grow up learning to expect a beating every time you break a glass or make eye contact at the wrong moment, you assume that is everyone else’s lived experience. It isn’t until you leave, until you realize there’s a world beyond the insular bubble in which you’ve been kept—alternatives to the reality that was forced upon you—that you begin to understand your perception is skewed. Understanding how _far_ it has been skewed is another thing entirely. She isn’t sure it’s even possible.

“How’s it going?”

The door to the observation room cracks open just enough to admit Maria. Spying the other woman’s reflection in the glass, Natasha doesn’t so much as glance in her direction.

“Well enough—as far as can be determined in a conversation when no one says anything,” Natasha replies, shrugging a shoulder with feigned nonchalance. One leg is crossed in front of the other, just the tip of her boot touching the floor, and her hands are braced lightly on the windowsill, more so she has a place to put them than to take her weight. To anyone who didn’t know how to read her, she’d be any other casual observer, present out of professional curiosity and nothing more.

Except Maria isn’t just anyone; Maria _does_ know her, has done since she was a first-year rookie with SHIELD, Agent Hill instead of Deputy Director. They’d run more than their fair share of ops together over the years, and you learn to read your partners in the field. Or, at least, the good ones do; the ones who don’t are usually the ones who don’t survive, and if there is one thing at which Natasha excels, it is the sheer brutality of survival. The ability to work in silent synchronicity with another person is only one on the long lottery list of things that keep you alive in the field, but this one Natasha had learned the hard way, watching her classmates die in training exercises. The first one happened the year she entered Red Room; she was eight.

She doesn’t know where Maria acquired that skill. She’s never asked, in part because some people are fortunate enough to have that innate ability without the accompanying variations of trauma. She likes to believe (hopes that) Maria is one of them.

Then Maria points out, “And you can have an entire conversation without moving or speaking,” and this is one of those times when Natasha can’t help wishing her friend wasn’t _quite_ so good at her job.

Drumming the fingers of her right hand against the sill (a nervous habit she rarely allows to surface), she says, “They are doing as well as they can. Reading a dossier, even when it is supposed to be yours, does not tell you much—not when you have been given one set of memories after another, a new life each time.” She cuts a glance at Maria, who’s come to stand beside her, close enough to be comforting, but not so close as to be suffocating. Maria’s face remains blessedly impassive.

“Maintaining every deep cover identity you have ever had?” Natasha continues. “By comparison, that is easy. Perhaps it should not be, but it is, and when this begins to unravel it is like…like trying to watch twenty films and read thirty-two books in as many languages, all at once, keeping the plots and translations of each straight, never mind separate.”

Running a hand through her hair, she blows out a frustrated breath. It’s a convoluted metaphor, and she knows it, but—the past few months notwithstanding—she isn’t accustomed to talking about this part of her life, having spent so much of her time since she left Russia trying to build something better from its remains. She can hear the stilted tone of her own voice: the sudden cessation of contractions in her speech when she is stressed is another tic she usually manages to keep pinned down. On an instinctive level, she isn’t sure if it’s reassuring or not that she trusts Maria enough to let even that much slip past her control. Even now, after so many years away from her homeland, “trust” remains a word fraught with weakness, with danger.

Closing the distance between them without ever taking a step, Maria lays a hand slowly atop Natasha’s, stilling the rapid movement of her fingers. “You came through well enough,” she offers, and the smile is audible even if it never appears in her expression.

Natasha gives that same half-shrug, sighing as she leans in to brace their shoulders together, but there’s a bloom of warmth in her chest at the reassurance. If she knew how, she’d thank her friend for it, but she doesn’t. Red Room and her handlers had taught her to never rely on or even seek approbation, a lesson that stayed with her when she was on her own in large part because she never felt she’d done anything particularly commendable. But not expecting it and not appreciating it are two different things, and she’s learned to separate them out though she still doesn’t ever know how to acknowledge the latter.

“Well enough,” she agrees, “but not unscathed, and while my training may have been brutal by most standards, I was not subject to the same level of programming.”

Still there are things interlaced in her memory that she cannot label fact or fiction, things her mind has been trained to do, things that have become muscle memory without her ever trying. Like the ballet: she would swear to any god that she had been a principal in the Bolshoi Ballet; her file (and her feet) designates it as impossible, for all that the motions come as easy as breathing when she’s en pointe or at a barre. There is a divide in her consciousness, where truth begins and when it fades away. Most people assume it is before and after SHIELD, if they give it any thought at all, but in actuality it is before and after Clint Barton. Because _that_ is the first recollection that she knows to be true, a mission gone pear-shaped that left her pursued by an American operative through what was then Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and Albania. Part of her had wanted nothing more than to take him out; the rest had been grudgingly, professionally impressed he managed to stay ahead of her.

He was not the first to try apprehending her, not by a long measure. He _was_ the first to succeed, which is how she met her best friend when he shot her in the thigh. With an _arrow_. (Years later, when Coulson had finally told her how he recruited Clint, she’d become convinced it was SOP for high-risk assets—the shootings, not the arrows.)

More than any of that, she remembers the abnormally long delay between contacts with HQ and her handlers, already two weeks behind when what she’d thought was a deranged bowman had appeared on her heels. And so she had ended up with threads of memory unraveling, fragments of every life she’d thought she’d lived spiraling around her in Rijeka against the ironically peaceful backdrop of the Adriatic Sea. She had been in search of an extraction point for months, savvy enough to know to wait for an opening. Trading one set of handlers for another may not have been on her list of possible exits, but take it she did, forcing her tumultuous memories to retain her ace in the hole: the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. She’d held on to it by the skin of her teeth, long enough to get her through the doors at SHIELD, but not without cost.

As with any other life experience, she can no more perfectly comprehend the thoughts that must be careening through Bucky’s head right now than she could have Tony’s when he’d first woken up in Afghanistan with a hole in his sternum and a car battery for impromptu life support. Extension. Something. But she can make her educated guesses, and she isn’t so naïve as to believe it is anything but agonizing.

Like her, Bucky is an assassin.

Unlike her, Bucky was also a soldier.

And layered over each of those things was a mirage of identities used to hide those skills, keep him from looking like a predator, from looking dangerous, until it was too late for a target to believe otherwise.

She should know: she played the same roles. Some of them they even played together.

(Even now she doesn’t know how much their handlers knew of their relationship. Strictly speaking, the operatives weren’t permitted fraternization, but it wouldn’t have been the first time an exception was made for the program’s benefit.)

“Some might argue the opposite,” Maria points out. This time Natasha turns sharply to look at her, but the other woman meets her gaze squarely. “You lived that life from childhood,” she says, “and he was dragged into it in adulthood.”

A beat; Natasha tries valiantly to formulate a response and fails, but Maria doesn’t seem to expect one, because she moves on, offering, “Xavier seems to trust that this is working.” The warm weight of her hand is a grounding force for which Natasha is unspeakably grateful, though she would never admit it aloud. She isn’t sure she’d know how to do this, either, if she wanted to. And she still lacks a coherent reaction to Maria’s initial statement, so she pushes it aside to be dealt with later. “He believes Barnes will be out of containment within the week.”

In spite of herself, Natasha blinks. “That is fast,” she says, uselessly.

“So were you,” Maria replies wryly, and Natasha snorts.

“You know what I meant.”

“I do,” Maria concedes. “My point stands.”

Slowly, Natasha shakes her head, staring through the glass at her former colleague, lover, perhaps even friend, insofar as they had been allowed friendships. “I cannot believe he is as sane as he is,” she admits.

It’s the first time she’s let herself voice the thought; it’s the first time she’s let herself admit, even in the silence of her own head, that she thought the same of herself once. The look Maria shoots her in answer is long, searching, assessing, one Natasha feels like the white noise hum of electricity brushing across her skin, though she doesn’t look up to acknowledge it.

“He is strong,” Maria says at last, “as you are. Having enough familiarity to be grounding without being overwhelming no doubt helps.”

She isn’t wrong: thirty years ago, Natasha had been the one facing the legendary Professor Charles Xavier across a table, fighting the alien sensation of someone else in her head. Though she hadn’t had the cognitive confusion Bucky has endured, Clint’s presence had nonetheless been a tangible reminder that it wasn’t all some vivid hallucination induced by her handlers. By contrast, stuffing her in a room with a cabal of agents to guard her would have been suffocating at best, deadly—for them—at worst.

“Why?” they had asked her, over and over again, in as many different ways and in as many different languages as they could possibly conjure, waiting for her to slip up and change her answer.

“Who are you?” they had asked her, and some days she hadn’t even had an answer to give, truth buried so deeply beneath layer upon layer of façade that she could not discern one from another.

“What do you want?” they had asked her, and she had almost never known whether to tell them “freedom” or “redemption”. The former sounded trite, the latter impossible, but both were (are) true in their own way. More often than not, she had said nothing at all.

“Who do you work for?” they had demanded, and by the time it was SHIELD and Xavier asking that question, to that at least she had had an answer at the ready: “Myself.”

Shaking herself back into the present, Natasha sighs and runs a hand through her hair again. “He remembers Steve, and he remembers me. That will either be his undoing, or it will be his anchor.”

Maria squeezes her hand, just a fractional increase of pressure. “We’ll know soon enough,” she replies, “but I know where I’d place my bets.”

In spite of herself, Natasha smiles. “Since when are you the optimist?”

Maria turns toward her, smiling back, her expression warm and open when she answers, “I know a sure thing when I see one, Natalia Romanova.”

To that, Natasha has no good response. She doesn’t need one. She simply turns her hand, twining her fingers around Maria’s once, briefly. It’s enough.

 

**v. now the strings are breaking, their fingers run with blood**

_23 April 2015_ ; Manhattan, New York

In total, Bucky spends just shy of two weeks in SHIELD custody, accessible only to a list of personnel cleared by Coulson himself. Exam follows exam follows exam, and at some point Wanda joins Xavier in literally picking through Bucky’s brain for triggers and a threat assessment, albeit with his consent. Sam continues to offer some official unofficial support for the clinical psych staff, while Tony focuses on the arm, poring over the engineering with a fine-tooth comb.

After that, Bucky is as cleared as he can be in so short a time. It surprises essentially everyone: an operative of the Winter Soldier’s caliber would normally be thrown into maximum security lock-up for nine months in the best of circumstances. But they’re out of tests to run, and it seems the six months or so he’d spent on his own after DC had served to undo more of his programming than anyone had thought possible. The more deeply embedded elements are deftly unraveled with the guidance of the psychics, and while that might feel a trifle akin to cheating, it is nonetheless effective. So, for lack of a better option, Coulson calls the whole team back into his office.

“We can’t—or rather, shouldn’t—inform the rest of the IC that we have James Barnes,” he says. “There’s plenty of speculation, and as I said before, it’ll have to be done sooner rather than later, but two weeks isn’t nearly enough time to establish a full picture.”

Leaning back against the edge of his desk, he looks almost apologetic. That he seems as worn down as the rest of them, suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, tie loosed and shirtsleeves pushed back to his elbows, and shadows beneath his eyes dark as greasepaint, is a faint comfort.

“He’s cleared, but we all know better than to assume that means stable, and I doubt that will come anytime in the near future. Which also means we cannot leave him to his own devices. We can continue to keep him here, or, if you are willing, he can be moved to the Tower.” He’s looking at Tony, but he intends the question for all of them, and Steve looks over at the other man with a despair he can _feel_.

“Security measures and surveillance are sufficient there,” Natasha supplies. “Add lockdown protocol to his floor, and that in addition to whichever of us happens to be there should be enough to handle anything that goes wrong.”

It might come down to a very fancy, well furnished form of house arrest, but it’s also miles better than a SHIELD holding cell.

“That’s easy enough to implement,” Tony says, with a frankly disconcerting level of calm, “so barring anyone else’s objections, it’s fine with me.”

Eighteen hours and three thousand pieces of paperwork later, Bucky is released into the Avengers’ custody looking not a little shellshocked. The surreal, impossible feeling that they’re in a badly researched Hollywood travesty has yet to dissipate. Steve knows exactly what he’s asked of Tony, knows it’s so far beyond fair it’s not funny; but he’s desperate, and their options are so limited they might as well have none at all. Except he knows Tony now, knows how to read him, and he recognizes the forced amiability behind the offer, realizes the smiles never reach his eyes. Then Tony disappears for the day after he’s updated the security measures on Bucky’s floor and walked him through the system.

Both to give Tony space and because Steve’s unsure of his own welcome, he gives it twelve hours before he goes looking. Unsurprisingly, he finds Tony in his workshop.

Though the door opens to Steve’s code when he gets there, which is at least a good sign, he still finds himself hovering uncomfortably just over the threshold, uncertain of his right to even be there. “Hey,” he says tentatively, and Tony glances up from the workbench.

“Hey yourself,” he replies.

There’s enough ease in his voice that Steve stops hovering by the door and crosses the room to hover instead by the workbench as unobtrusively as possible, hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets. He waits, but when it’s clear Tony’s not going to break the silence, he finally ventures, “You okay?” He’s cringing in his head even as the words leave his mouth—it’s an asinine question, but he lacks anything better with which to start the conversation.

Again, Tony looks up, offering him a brief, weary smile. “Yeah,” he answers, and Steve doesn’t call him on the lie.

Tony certainly isn’t drunk, but Steve can smell the scotch on his breath; even if he couldn’t, the empty bottle in the bin would be a pretty good giveaway, and there are dark circles beneath Tony’s eyes as though he hasn’t slept in weeks. Still he asks, “You?”

Steve tries to nod and shrug at the same time, which really just feels like pulling a muscle. Shifting his weight, he merely stands there, trying to find the words to articulate “I’m not sorry, except for how I’m so, so sorry”, or maybe some expression of gratitude. He comes up empty.

After Manhattan, but before SHIELD fell, Steve had worked most of his SHIELD assignments alongside Natasha or Clint, sometimes both, and none of them had had the faintest idea whether or not that was intentional on Fury’s part. “It probably is,” Clint had said one night on the world’s most boring stakeout, after two days of the field ops equivalent of watching paint dry. “I’m pretty sure the man plans out twenty years in advance.”

Partnering with them had taught Steve a lot: the serum had given him strength, agility, a faster learning curve, the capability to do so much more than he could before, but it couldn’t on its own teach him how to hit a target or run surveillance or be effective at covert action. More than that, though, working with them—especially Natasha—had challenged him, forced him to move away from the predominantly black-and-white moral ground he’d held most of his life. He wasn’t stupid; far from it. He knew good people could do the wrong things for the right reasons, but more on the level of stealing bread to feed your starving family. The operational level hadn’t had even that much grey: for them, the war had all but boiled down to “Hitler’s bad, the Allied forces are good”. He’d been young when he went in, and he wasn’t all that much older when he made what everyone thought was a permanent exodus, so he never had the chance to learn otherwise. Even after he’d woken up, Manhattan had been fairly straightforward. The aliens were shooting at them; ergo, they shot back.

But then he found himself working alongside a former mercenary and a KGB assassin who had defected to SHIELD more than she had to any country. Where he saw multitudinous levels of good and evil, Natasha read a spectrum of grey, and more than once their arguments had gone the way of that night on the Lemurian Star, fighting one another on priorities and trust and the definition of acceptable loss. Having her as a partner pushed him to reevaluate his own assumptions and preconceptions, and even if he didn’t always agree with her, he began at least to comprehend the logic that drove her. Then SHIELD toppled like a puppet government, throwing him headlong into the grey whether he was ready for it or not, on the run with Natasha and ceding control to her in crafting a level of deception he’d never have convinced himself to do on his own. It had been a lesson taught the hard way, learning to swim by being thrown not in the deep end of the pool but over the Marianas Trench. It’s one he’s still learning, but Bucky had been a driving force behind his _willingness_ to learn.

Most days he still doesn’t know if bringing Bucky back was a selfish move and morally wrong, or if it fell in that nebulous spectrum where everything was defined by relativity, or if he was righting some egregious universal injustice. That he can’t bring himself to feel truly guilty for any of it makes him by turns angry at himself and angry at the rest of the world for putting them in so untenable a position.

Bringing him _here_ , to the Tower, is another decision he can’t categorize. Objectively, he knows as well as the rest of the team that their options were limited and this was the best by a mile. Bucky’s still unsteady, but not actively homicidal—or suicidal—and Tony is going out of his way to put his personal feelings aside, to help the man who had killed his parents. In this, there are bad decisions and crushing guilt no matter which way Steve turns; he’ll feel like Judas Iscariot no matter what he chooses.

In the end, at a loss for a defensible explanation or apology or anything at all, he blurts out, “I couldn’t leave him again.”

His voice breaks halfway through the sentence, all the frustration and exhaustion and confusion and rigid self-control shattering over him with the force of a dam breaking. Of all people, Tony doesn’t deserve to bear the weight of Steve’s self-reproach, but they’ve come to see one another as safe space in the last months, and it’s habit-forming, given how rare a find it is for them both. If their romance is uncertain, or even completely decimated, their friendship still feels solid in a way very little else does.

Sinking ungracefully onto a stool, he lets his elbows hit the edge of the table with a thump that reverberates into his shoulders, drops his face into his hands. “God, I’m sorry,” he says, barely louder than a whisper. “I’m so sorry. You deserve better than this, I know that, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t just leave him there, alone with strangers again to go through god only knows what, and walk away.” Blinking hard against the burning in his eyes, he refuses to look up in the futile hope Tony won’t hear the thickness of his voice. “I did it once, watched him fall and left him there, and maybe this is—I don’t know, it’s the closest I’ll ever get to a second chance.” His hands are trembling, and he can’t seem to make them stop. “I’m probably fucking all of this up anyway, with you and with him, but I can’t—I couldn’t—”

He stops, trying to swallow words and years of hope and grief and tears and anger until they’re choking him. Then Tony’s _there_ even though Steve never heard him move, arms coming around him as his hand curls around the base of Steve’s neck.

“I know,” he says simply. It shouldn’t be enough, but it is, not least because it isn’t just a platitude; Tony actually _does_ know, maybe too well, what it’s like to get another chance at redemption, however undeserved it seems.

Steve latches onto him, presses his face against Tony’s shoulder and tries to remember how to breathe. For a few minutes it’s enough to just stay like that, wrapped up in each other. With the exception of his mother and Bucky’s deaths, he can’t remember the last time he felt this wrung out, this _wrecked_ , like the rug’s been yanked from beneath his feet and he’s falling into a chasm. He doesn’t know how to find purchase, find something solid again, so he lets the weight and warmth and tangibility of Tony ground him; it’s that or go to pieces completely, and he doubts he has the energy for that.

Finally, Steve pulls away—or, more accurately, stops trying to strangle Tony by hugging him so hard. “Thank you,” he says, voice a touch hoarse, “for doing this for me, for him.”

Hands coming up to frame Steve’s face, thumbs tracing across his cheekbones to brush away the wetness, Tony leans in to kiss him. It’s the barest press of lips, chaste and fleeting, but it’s perfect all the same.

“I’m not good at this,” Tony acknowledges with a sigh, “at feelings, at being the better man, taking the high road. But you know that by now.” He smiles, faint and self-deprecating, and this close he looks even more exhausted than Steve thought. His complexion is too pale, eyes lacking their usual lively spark, and Steve hates that he’s mostly responsible. “But I know what it’s like to get a second chance, and I won’t be the person who takes that away from you—either of you.” The corners of his mouth twitch up, just barely. “I’m not promising I won’t screw it up, but I can promise to try.”

Drawing him back in, Steve lays his head back against Tony’s shoulder, bracketed by the thrum of his pulse on one side and the steady, reassuring beat of his heart on the other. “It’s still more than I have any right to ask of you. Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t thank me yet,” Tony says, wry and resigned. “Like I said, I’m probably gonna fuck it up sooner or later.”

Steve shakes his head without looking up. “No,” he counters, because right now it might be the only thing of which he’s certain in his world, “you won’t.”

 

**vi. it’s a different kind of danger ( & my feet are spinning around)**

_7 May 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Two weeks after Bucky’s official release from SHIELD to Avengers Tower, Tony finally cracks. Unlike the usual Tony Stark brashness and show, this is quiet (too quiet). It’s the sort of thing that, if you know him, sets off very loud klaxons and blinding red lights.

It’s perhaps the second time Bucky’s hesitantly taken the team up on the standing offer to join them for one of their irregular movie nights. (No one really knows when this became a thing, but it did, even if it is more often than not interrupted by aliens or evil robots or gargantuan spiders or what have you.) When he _is_ with the team, he tends to gravitate toward either Natasha or Steve when he isn’t trying to make himself as invisible as possible. Tonight is like any other night, except for the fact that, halfway through the film, Tony simply gets up and leaves. He’d been sitting next to Steve, and at first it seems like he’s only getting a drink.

Until he doesn’t come back.

Only Steve, Nat, Bruce, and Bucky himself have the intel to make so much as an educated guess. Despite the nearly nine-month search and month since Bucky’s return, the rest of the team has yet to be filled in on the elephant in the room—the longer they wait, the easier it is to put it off, to avoid one more potential rift. Ill-advised it may be, but for the moment it keeps Steve from going after Tony, if only just. If he has no idea how the rest of the film goes, well, no one needs to know. He does a laudable job pretending absolutely nothing’s wrong, and when the film is over and they’ve straightened up the common room, Steve finally asks JARVIS where Tony is.

“Penthouse, Captain,” comes the response, and Steve mumbles his thanks in response.

Once in the elevator, he stands there for a solid five minutes, debating whether or not he should even try, whether or not he’d even be welcome. He and Tony still haven’t talked—at least, not about their relationship, not really—nor are they at the point where they’re spending every night with each other, though it happens more often than not. But ever since Bucky moved in, it’s felt like absolutely everyone is walking on eggshells.

It’s natural. It’s expected.

It also sucks.

In the end, Steve goes up. He supposes the fact that the floor hasn’t been closed off bodes well enough. Hesitantly, he steps into the great room, but he gets no response when he calls Tony’s name. Then he sees him through the windows—the lights inside are dim enough that he can make out Tony’s silhouette, elbows braced against the railing of the balcony (or patio, or terrace, or whatever the hell descriptor applies to a balcony bigger than your average helipad). He’s staring out at the skyline, unfocused; the crystal tumbler he’s holding seems to be there more to give himself something to occupy his hands than because he actually wants to drink. He’s backlit by the lights of the city itself, and after another five minutes of deliberation Steve steps outside.

“Tony?” he asks from what’s basically still the doorway, unsure of his welcome.

Tony doesn’t turn, but the “Hey, you,” that’s becoming his customary greeting for Steve is tender, even with the strain and exhaustion threaded through his voice.

He approaches slowly, like you would a nervous horse—cautious, but not timid. “I didn’t—I can leave if—” he starts to offer, but Tony shakes his head, extends his free hand behind him without looking.

“It’s okay,” he says, and Steve finally comes up beside him.

He slips his right arm over Tony’s shoulders, taking advantage of their height difference to rest his chin on the left, tangling their fingers together. He doesn’t know how to ask the question that’s in his head, doesn’t really even know what the question _is_ , but to his surprise it’s Tony who breaks the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, barely audible even though Steve’s maybe an inch away. “It’s…”

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve tries to interject, even though the very idea of having to choose between his best friend and the man he thinks he might be falling for has his heart twisting in his chest like a coil of snakes.

Shaking his head before Steve’s done speaking, Tony squeezes his hand and replies, “I know, it’s not that. Just…” He pauses, like he’s debating how honest he wants to be. “They died before Christmas, but next week’s the anniversary of…the last time I saw them. Do you even have anniversaries for that?”

The apparent moratorium on proper nouns doesn’t make a difference—Steve doesn’t even notice, just deflates against him. “God, Tony.” He sounds wretched, even to his own ears, and drops his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, babe, I’m so sorry, I never should have asked—”

“Hey.” Tony turns, finally, setting his glass on the lip of the railing so he can reach up to cup Steve’s face in his hands. “I offered, remember?” His shrug is uneasy, expression awkward and full of condemnation for himself, and Steve hates that he’s the reason why. “You had no way of knowing, and it hasn’t bothered me in years. Hell, the anniversary of their actual death hasn’t bothered me in years; I didn’t stop to think any of it might be different this time.” His touch is featherlight, eyes luminous with sadness and guilt and something else Steve can’t name. “I told you I’d fuck this up.” He’s trying to pass it off as a joke; it doesn’t really succeed for either of them.

“I’m pretty sure this one isn’t you.”

Steve’s attempt falls every bit as flat, helped not at all by the way he can’t quite keep his voice steady, by the way his grip tightens in Tony’s shirt as he thinks he’s going to lose the two people who matter most to him because of his own selfish need to not fail again. The irony isn’t lost on him, he’s just of the mind that the universe has a fucking cruel sense of humor.

Tony doesn’t say anything—there’s nothing _to_ say, or at least nothing that matters—but he pulls him close, cheek resting against Steve’s collarbone; Steve holds on like he’s afraid Tony will disappear if he lets go, which maybe he is. He doesn’t know how long they stand there like that, but at last Tony murmurs in his ear, “Let’s go to bed?”

He hates himself for the relief he feels at the question, because he keeps waiting for the day when Tony decides he’s had enough. He doesn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him this isn’t healthy for anyone, but he has no idea how to fix it. So for now, he just nods, silently, and Tony drops his glass on the counter as they go in, JARVIS shutting the lights behind them as they pass.

 

**vii. i wasn’t there to take his place (i was ten thousand miles away)**

_23 May 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Ever since November, when he’d come face-to-face with the irrefutable evidence that James Barnes was in fact alive, a part of his brain has been steadfastly holding to the inane belief that finding Bucky will be some sort of panacea for all that they’ve suffered. Regardless of the mounting evidence right in front of his face, of everything he’s ever been taught, of basic rational thought, the beatific fantasy persists.

He is, unsurprisingly, wrong beyond measure.

Successfully retrieving Bucky is a fait accompli, a testament to their skill and dedication and loyalty. Having him back does wonders to alleviate Steve’s fear that his friend will end up back in Russian custody, or dead. He can’t even decide which of those is the worse option. What it can’t do mitigate the pernicious truth of _having_ him back, instead shattering that vacuous fragment of hope. He’s been at the Tower and out of SHIELD custody for a month, but still they seem to be trapped in this tortuous state of limbo. Bucky might be living there, but he ventures out so sporadically that, had Steve not walked him into his quarters personally, he’d wonder if the last month-and-a-half was anything more than a dream.

On anyone else it would be downright misanthropic, but it isn’t as though Bucky’s paranoia is unjustified. Unfortunately for Steve, no one has thought to write _The Idiot’s Guide to Communicating with your Now-Deprogrammed Best Friend_ , so he’s left to his own devices. Thus far, said devices have chiefly entailed pacing an indelible imprint in the carpet of the outside hallway on Bucky’s floor. At least until either he stops trying to muster his nerve to knock and leaves, or Tony or Natasha finds him and coaxes him to the penthouse or the communal floors or his own floor.

There’s a line in the sand he can’t seem to discern. They’ve all been deliberately explicit in ensuring Bucky knows the Tower is open to him, that he hasn’t traded one prison cell for another but rather for a home. On the flipside, while he’s not in enforced isolation, privacy and respect for solitude are paramount in the Tower, superseded by little else. He doesn’t want Bucky to answer the door for him out of obligation, just as he doesn’t want Bucky thinking Steve doesn’t care about seeing him. In the end, it merely adds up to an astronomically impressive amount of nothing.

He knows that Bucky and Tony have spoken, if only out of necessity—he’d half-expected mutually-assured destruction and is still appreciably shocked there hadn’t been so much as shouting, never mind explosions—and that Natasha makes it a point to take a few hours out of her day for him a couple times a week. Hell, Steve’s discussed Bucky _with_ Tony and Nat on countless occasions; the only thing he can’t seem to do is have a one-on-one conversation with Bucky himself.

It takes a month before he finally knocks on Bucky’s door (he’s grasping at straws, he knows, but he supposes it’s an improvement over seventy years and that has to count for something). Not until his knuckles have already struck the wood does it abruptly occur to him that it’s probably too damn early for anyone else to be awake. But before he can slink back into the elevator and pretend he was never there, the door opens.

For a moment, neither of them speak. Bucky appears to be in the same vicinity of alertness as Steve, which is to say awake by virtue of sheer willpower after not having slept in altogether too long. Yet his smile is tinged with relief, easing the coil of anxiety Steve can’t seem to push from his chest.

“You look like hell,” Bucky says, rapidly enough for him to have spoken without thinking. It startles a laugh out of Steve, which in turn seems to quash the inchoate panic manifesting in Bucky’s body language, and he steps back enough to let Steve in.

“Like you’re one to talk, kettle,” Steve says as he passes. It’s not the wittiest rejoinder he’s ever come up with, but it gets his friend to smile again, leaching away the last of the tension like water through a sieve.

From what he’s gathered, having so much as an opinion under Bucky and Natasha’s handlers was tantamount to a capital offense; having the audacity to possess a personality didn’t even come under consideration. He resolutely refuses to believe that the conditioning is irreversible, he only wishes he knew how help the recovery come a little faster. The psychics could undo the programming, but they could do nothing about the damage left in its wake.

Today, however, feels something akin to normal, whatever that is. Maybe it’s healing, or maybe it’s the universe granting a moment of clemency, but gift horse, mouth, etc.

Bucky pours him a cup of coffee—“You always managed to outdo everyone in the camp,” Steve says with a grin, “which almost makes up for you not being able to cook for shit”—and they crash on the sofa with mindless tv that has something to do with a dragon, and conversation about nothing in particular. It’s a moment suspended in time, as though the war never happened and they’re twenty years old in their quaint, cramped Brooklyn apartment with only each other’s company, back when that was more than sufficient. He clutches at that feeling like it’s the last toehold on a cliff, hoarding it for the inevitable moment after that calm dissipates.

It doesn’t take long.

There’s a lull in the conversation in tandem with a commercial break. JARVIS always, by default, drops the volume on those—it tends to decrease the general risk of aneurysm and/or mangled furniture—and silence blankets them. Quiescence becomes the weight of decades’ worth of words unspoken, threatening to crush them through the floors to the very foundation of the building unless they speak.

“I’m sorry,” they both blurt into the vacuum between them. They both pause, Bucky’s expression as puzzled as Steve feels.

“Why are _you_ sorry?” they ask, in parallel yet again.

Their synchronicity would be laughable, hilarious like those black-and-white slapstick comedies Clint loves so much. It would be, if it didn’t feel like someone had reached in, laying Steve open to wrench his heart from his chest. Bucky doesn’t appear to be faring any better.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, Steve says, at the exact moment Bucky does, “You first,” then groans in exasperation, dropping his head into his hands.

After a moment he straightens, holding up a hand palm-out, traffic-cop style, and repeats, “You first.”

“Nice to know some things don’t change,” Bucky says with a wan smile, not quite meeting Steve’s gaze.

Despite everything, Steve smiles back. They had been like this from the moment they’d met—“What the hell do you think you’re doing??” they’d both shouted at one another indignantly, when Bucky found a young Steve fighting a bully twice his size in an alley. “Are you crazy??”—and had from then on been all but inseparable. It had driven their mothers up the wall; everyone else had found it simply unnerving.

Taking a breath and setting his shoulders like he’s steeling himself against an assault, Bucky finally looks up, meeting Steve’s eyes squarely. The knuckles of his left hand are bone-white and bloodless, and if Steve didn’t know better he’d spare a concern about crushing the prosthetic. But his friend’s body language is as open as Steve has seen since they got back from Romania, like he’s willing to accept whatever hit will follow.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, solo this time. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I’m sorry—” His voice catches, but he pushes forward doggedly. “I’m sorry I almost succeeded. I’m sorry you had to haul yourselves across half of Europe to track me down.” A pause; then, so softly he’s barely audible though Steve’s close enough to make out the worn threads in his shirt collar, “But I’m glad you did. Thank you.”

The cracking in his chest, Steve thinks, must be loud enough to serve as some sort of macabre acoustic accompaniment, and he shakes his head. “And I’m sorry I _left_ you there,” he offers, just as quietly. “If I had any idea you survived, I’d have jumped off the damn train after you. If I had, you never would have been trying to kill me in the first place.”

“There’s no way you could have known.”

“And it wasn’t you on that bridge,” Steve counters. “It _was_ you when you stopped.”

Bucky stares at him, stupefied. “This is so fucked up,” he says at last.

Steve’s answering laugh sounds strangled even to his own ears; that’s an understatement of epic proportions if he ever heard one. “Yes, yes it is,” he agrees. “After I woke up, I wanted so badly to hate this century, like I was somehow betraying everything I left behind if I didn’t. But it was impossible, and all I wanted was for you to be able to see it, to see everything the world had managed to become, good and bad. But—” Corners of his lips curving up in a melancholy smile, he shrugs. “This isn’t how I wanted it to happen.”

Releasing the vice grip on his own hand, Bucky reaches haltingly across the space between them to cover Steve’s. “It’s okay,” he says, “it wasn’t your fault.” Steve’s head snaps up so quickly it’s a minor miracle he doesn’t give himself whiplash, but before he can so much as open his mouth, Bucky stays the protest like he knows it’s coming. “No, listen.”

There’s a truculent determination sparking in his eyes that Steve hasn’t seen since…well, since before Bucky was deployed. Even after the 107th returned, alive, between the war and the trauma there hadn’t been much occasion for that kind of fire unless it was on the battlefield. It’s enough to subdue him, make him hold his tongue for whatever Bucky will say next.

“I remember falling,” he says, like a confession, and Steve fights to suppress the instinctive urge to shrink away from that. “It’s one of the few clear memories I have, falling from that train—the cold, the fear, the _noise_ —but more than anything I remember looking up at you.” It isn’t until Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand that he realizes how badly they’re both trembling. Leaning forward to hold Steve’s gaze (as if Steve could look away even if he wished), Bucky shakes his head. “My mind is a mess right now,” he admits, “and I still don’t always know what was real and what they made me believe, but the last thing I _know_ is falling; falling, and thinking, ‘thank god it’s me and not him’.”

Steve tries to swallow around his heart in his throat and fails. “Bucky—” He sounds like he’s choking on his friend’s name, voice barely more than a sob.

“I was right,” he says like Steve hadn’t spoken, immutable pride written across his face. “I would have been even if you hadn’t stopped Schmidt, even if you hadn’t been Captain America. I didn’t—and still don’t—regret it, or blame you.” His smile is tremulous, and there’s something ironic and unbelievable about Bucky offering reassurance after all he’s survived. Steve will find a way to tell him he’s wrong, that he shouldn’t have been the one to fall, but his mind is too much of a jumbled mess to do it now, and it isn’t the time for it even if he _were_ capable. “You didn’t push me off that train. You didn’t kill me.”

To that, at least, Steve has an answer at the ready. “And you didn’t kill me.” He’ll repeat it until he dies, carve it into stone, anything.

After a moment, Bucky blows out an explosive breath. “Okay. Okay, good. So while neither of us is ever going to believe the other for like another five years, can we stop apologizing for all the shit that isn’t our fault?”

“I’m not making any promises,” Steve replies, only half-kidding, and Bucky rolls his eyes halfheartedly.

“You always were a stubborn ass,” he grumbles, and he gets a watery laugh in answer.

“Takes one to know one,” Steve shoots back.

Though he knows they’re far from done, that they haven’t even come into proximity of the worst of it, it’s the first step.

It’s more than than they had an hour ago.

 

**viii. no use wishing on the water (it grants you no relief)**

_1 June 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

This isn’t going as well as he (they) thought it would.

In his workshop, Tony stares balefully at the empty tumbler on the table in front of him. There’s an insignificant half-inch of amber liquor left, from what had two hours ago been a mostly full bottle. He’s undecided as to which is better deserving of his caustic hatred: himself, or the Glenfiddich. Either way, bitterness lingers on his tongue and in his throat, permanent reminders etched into his mouth.

He had been okay, he really had. He’d been doing just fine, from the moment speculation became confirmation and they had the Winter Soldier in custody, to moving him over to headquarters. Through it all, he’d been laudably even-keeled, much to his own surprise and quite likely everyone else’s. But that was then, over a month ago, when bulletproof glass and thick concrete and intermediaries and the coldly unbiased atmosphere of medical had helped him manufacture distance in his mind. As an engineer, he should have known better than to rely on that—a building needs an unerring foundation to remain standing, and he hasn’t had time to build one.

Still, he’d rather tread water than drown, and by virtue of nothing more than sheer bloody-mindedness, he had made it work. Then Bucky took up residence in the Tower—in Tony’s _home_ —and it all came crashing down on his head, a life-sized reenactment of a Jenga tower.

It’s incredibly, irrefutably stupid, a mantra that’s been running ceaselessly through his head even as he was getting progressively more intoxicated in the dubious safety of his own basement. (Alcohol and power tools may generally be considered a highly inadvisable combination, but it’s not as though that’s ever stopped him before.) He’s always known he was far stupider than one would expect of a genius, but this had brought it home tenfold. He hasn’t drunk this much in one sitting since the whole fiasco with Pepper and Extremis and Killian, but the universe must take great pleasure in taunting him, because he’s still too fucking sober.

It shouldn’t have felt like a punch to the solar plexus, like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him every time he saw Bucky. It did.

It should have made some iota of difference that Bucky, in his uncertain meandering about the Tower, constantly looked ashen and unnerved, like his handlers were on the verge of jumping out of the walls at any moment. It didn’t.

It shouldn’t have pushed Tony over the brink, resorting once again to subduing the clamor in his head by drowning it in the offerings of his bar. It did.

“Get a grip, Stark,” he mutters vindictively to himself, then tosses back the last of the whisky and pushes himself to his feet.

The room tilts inexorably to the left, and DUM-E makes an aborted move as if to catch him. Tony waves him off clumsily, vice grip on the edge of the table keeping him upright. He feels pathetic enough without his robot pitying him, and eventually he steadies enough to get himself out of the lab and into the elevator up to the penthouse, grateful for the rare absence of the Tower’s usual cadre of insomniacs.

It isn’t as though he hadn’t known that Bucky—the Winter Soldier, he corrects himself, which is only a marginal improvement, but he’ll take whatever port in a storm—was responsible for the car crash that killed his parents. It isn’t as though he hasn’t made peace with that as best he can. Howard will always be an unresolved question mark of a memory, and he misses Maria’s quiet grace and understated strength, but he’s had almost two decades to grieve, to move on.

Nothing in that time period, however, had prepared him for the icy shock of coming face-to-face with their murderer—had prepared him for the icy shock _that_ they were murdered—a man who had for so long been nonexistent, nothing more than a name in a file.

He tells himself this is merely a bad moment, that it will pass. He knows nothing of the sort, but as he crawls between the 1500-thread-count sheets, he hopes it’s true. If it’s not, someone’s going to be hauling him bodily into a room with padded walls before too long.

Perhaps it’s the alcohol talking, but he fancies he can still smell Steve on the pillow as he settles. It’s only been a few days since Steve was here, and now the bed feels too empty, too vast an expanse of nothingness. The room spins as he closes his eyes, but he drifts off into a restless sleep before he can think any further on that.

Come morning, it’s easier—but then, mornings are always easier. With morning comes an isolated breath of stasis, of nothingness if not of peace; then he blinks, or takes a breath, and it all comes rushing back like a freight train. Today, said train comes complete with a hangover that pulses at his temples like a gift from the literal hounds of hell. The concerned looks Steve sends his way when he thinks Tony isn’t looking grate on already frayed nerves like nails on chalkboard, but if he happens across Bucky, bumping into him in the hallway or encountering him in the kitchen, at least the feeling of someone trying to forcibly separate him from his guts through his nose is mercifully diminishing. So is the urge to undo all his efforts of goodwill by trying to break Bucky’s neck, though that last may be nothing more than self-preservation instincts.

It’s a slow, incessant process, but it improves. With each rotation of the earth, it takes a beat longer for the agony to settle back in his bones like a physical ailment; with every sunset, he finds an added moment of respite. Gradually, it becomes more manageable to push down the things he shouldn’t voice, to ignore with a little more force the pain gnawing relentlessly at him. Admittedly, any progress is about evenly due to him shoring up his defenses as it is half-deliberately avoiding Bucky wherever possible, but he tells himself vociferously that it’s better for them both and does his best to brush aside the way it feels like a lie branded into his tongue.

It’s not ideal, but it’s feasible.

Bucky, unfortunately, has other plans.

Late in the evening, when Tony’s come out—down, this time, from his lab, instead of dragging himself up from the workshop—to get a cup of coffee from the communal kitchen, he’s watching the sun retreat beneath the Manhattan skyline. When he turns, he finds Bucky standing less than an arm’s length in front of him. By a valiant effort of will, he doesn’t jump, though he twitches back reflexively, spilling just-percolated coffee over his hand.

“Fucking _fuck_ ,” he hisses, making a mental note to check the default temperature on the coffee machine. The liquid feels just shy of the boiling point, and with this many goddamn spies and assassins under his roof that’s an accident waiting to happen.

Bucky says nothing amidst Tony’s cursing, even when Tony finds himself short a napkin or a dishtowel or anything of the sort and licks the spill off the side of the mug, burning his tongue as he does. The mug might be a poor excuse for an avoidance tactic, but if so, that’s between him and his coffee. Or at least it should be, except for how it doesn’t work.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky blurts out eventually, when Tony’s run out of suitable swear words in English and has made his way over to French, with a smattering of German thrown in for good measure.

Tony’s first response is confusion. Frowning down at his mug, he opens his mouth to say the coffee was his mistake, and the dent in the toaster was Thor’s doing, don’t worry about it. Then he looks up, if only by accident, and the words dry on his tongue like the sand of the Sahara.

“Don’t,” he says instead, short and sharp and still too much like a plea because he _knows_ , without having to hear it, what Bucky’s trying to say, and he can’t do this now.

Bucky snaps his mouth shut and retreats a few paces, but not before Tony sees the guilt—and worse, the complete lack of surprise—that flits across his face. The silence stretches between them like so much empty space, and as much as Tony wants to look away, _tries_ to look away, he can’t. Bucky meets his gaze resolutely, even if the rest of him is poised to flee, the conflict wending so tightly around his body that it’s practically a visible presence. Until now, all of their interactions have been a) mandated, and b) medical, and Tony’s primary survival mechanism has been to keep everything as clinical as possible. He’s made as little eye contact as he could, because regardless of how much he hates doctors who do that, he doesn’t trust himself not to let his anger bleed into his expressions in all this chaos, and he isn’t so much of an ass that he _wants_ Bucky to see that.

Now, though, he wonders if that might have been worth the risk, since whatever he expected to find, it hadn’t been _this_. “Remorse” is, on its own, too simple a word, but it’s there, overlaid by quiet desperation and a current of sadness that’s almost palpable. What Tony sees shouldn’t matter: those are still the same hands that cut off his parents’ breaths, that took his mother from him. But that logic has ceased to work, like cut brake lines on a train, and it hits him with commensurate force. For the first time, he thinks, _The Soldier killed my parents_ , and all his preexisting hang-ups on the name don’t immediately flood to the surface. For the first time, it doesn’t take conscious effort and gritted teeth to distinguish between James Barnes and the Winter Soldier.

“It wasn’t you,” he says, mildly surprised to hear himself speak.

With a broken parody of a laugh, Bucky shakes his head. “It sounds like you’ve practiced that a lot. Maybe one day it’ll even sound like the truth,” he replies, without animus.

He takes a step forward, and despite Tony’s best efforts he flinches, wincing when more coffee splashes onto his hand where it’s clenched around the handle of the mug. Raising both hands in a placating gesture, Bucky stops.

“Look,” he says, awkward and halting and too loud in the stillness of the room, “I know you’d probably rather beat me to a pulp. It’s not like I can blame you for that.” He shrugs one shoulder, though it looks more like a muscle spasm. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry, even if that probably doesn’t make a damn difference. And to thank you, for letting me stay, since it’s probably the last thing you want.”

Drawing in a long, slow breath, Tony forces himself to look Bucky in the eye. It’s painfully clear that this _is_ Bucky, not the weapon Russia forged of ice and blood and pain. Grudgingly, Tony concedes silently that this, too, is why he’s vehemently eschewed eye contact, the risk that if Bucky saw his anger, Tony would also see Bucky’s regret, his struggle. The man standing in this kitchen carries himself like someone who fought straight through a war and managed to come out the other side, splintering at the edges and everywhere in between, but alive. Tony’s worked with the military too long not to recognize that, seen it too often in himself in the years since Afghanistan to not feel a reflexive empathy. He sees someone clinging by his fingertips to a ledge, giving all he has left to keep from falling back into that dark abyss, and damn if Tony doesn’t intimately understand that. The Soldier could kill him without a thought; Bucky, by contrast, is almost afraid of him, and that thought alone is so absurd that Tony swallows down the hysterical laughter that wants to come bursting out of his throat.

He knows how this feels, at least the broad strokes; by extension, he also knows the wherewithal it takes to stand in a living nightmare and lay the truth bare. He knows, because every time he himself has tried to do it, he’s failed.

For lack of a better way to acknowledge that effort, he forces himself to breathe, to let his shoulders come down from around his ears, to straighten his spine and stand square. “Okay. Yeah, okay,” he says, drawing his free hand down his face and trying to leach the tension away with the motion. “I’m—yeah. Apology accepted.”

The smile Bucky gives him is worn and vulnerable, but it’s one of a handful Tony’s ever seen reach the other man’s eyes, and most of those have been directed at Steve or Natasha, however tentatively. He’s sharply aware that he actually means what he just said, detachedly surprised like he would be at a news report that he knew nothing about. And when he returns Bucky’s smile, if it’s no less vague than Bucky’s own, it at least feels more sincere than it has before.

All things considered, it’s something.

 

**ix. this body trembling like a wind-blown reed**

_9 June 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Standing in front of the coffeemaker in the communal kitchen like he can will it to brew faster if he just stares hard enough, Tony hears someone approach before he sees them, registers Bucky’s quiet, I-am-invisible, unobtrusive tread. He thinks distantly that this thing with Bucky and coffee damn well better not become a pattern.

“Morning,” he mumbles, at least predominantly coherent and directed sort of vaguely over his shoulder. After being up all night working on a new suit, it’s impressive enough that he actually knows it’s morning. They’re going to blithely ignore the fact that the sunrise is visible through the windows, thank you very much.

The red light blinks out, and Tony seizes the carafe, pouring it into one of the giant soup mugs Natasha had bought him as a gag gift. (They had turned out to be incredibly convenient, much to her mingled amusement and dismay.) He downs half of it in one go, wanting caffeine more than he wants to not burn his mouth or the lining of his throat, and then he finally registers that there’s nothing but silence in the room. Turning, he half expects to find Bucky gone and is surprised to see him standing uncertainly by the counter instead. After last week, Tony had harbored the faint hope that they’d moved past the stage of awkwardly lingering in empty rooms staring at one another. Apparently he was wrong.

Bucky’s wearing a an oversized dark sweater that looks intent on devouring him whole, hunched in on himself with his prosthetic arm curled tight against his body as if constrained by an invisible sling. He meets Tony’s gaze for a brief moment and opens his mouth like he’s about to say something; then he shuts it as his eyes skip away again. In the silence, Tony catalogues the unhealthy pallor of his skin, the fine sheen of sweat across his forehead and neck. They keep the Tower’s thermostat somewhere in the low 70s, but in May it’s definitely too warm for that sweater; the ambient temperature is too cool for that sweat to be exertion; and with the careful way he’s holding himself, there’s no way he’s been at the gym.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, frowning, then waves his free hand in the air to save Bucky the confusion of responding. “Your arm,” he clarifies.

Bucky shifts his weight from foot to foot, edgy as a child called into the principal’s office. “Yeah,” he finally replies, shrugging his good shoulder awkwardly; Tony doesn’t miss the flash of pain in his eyes, though it’s suppressed in the space of a second.

“It’s been getting worse for a while now, and Steve said—” He cuts himself off, shakes his head. “Steve doesn’t know it’s bad,” he adds, the “and please don’t tell him” written across his face more plainly than if he’d said it aloud. “But he said if I ever needed help with this, you’re good at it, and since you were the one who worked on it when I got back…”

Uncomfortably, he trails off. As much as Tony thinks he wants to say no, to turn him away and let the Soldier suffer, he knows just as quickly that he’s lying to himself. He comprehends pain better than most people, no longer afforded the luxury of _not_ feeling pain—and, in case he’d somehow forgotten, the scar tissue around the reactor pulls, aching with even the faint motion of breathing. Wish though he might that he were a more heartless person right this moment, last week had if nothing else shoved them unceremoniously beyond their unspoken impasse, and it’s become increasingly difficult to shunt Bucky and the Winter Soldier away in the same box in his head. So he nods.

“Come down to the workshop with me,” he says.

He knows better than to only say “come on” and simply expect the other man to follow. He knows, because he remembers that sense of suspicion; he knows, because it stays with him no matter how far he thinks he’s come.

As he keys the doors open, he’s about to have JARVIS throw on his usual music. Then he pauses, rethinking the wisdom of that decision with the noise and shouting and generally jarring tonality. He calls up blues and jazz and classical instead—to keep Bucky from going into a PTSD tailspin and killing Tony, he tells himself, not because he’s all that concerned with Bucky’s wellbeing (he knows this, too, is a lie even as he thinks it).

Motioning to one of the stools at the workbench, he asks, “What’s bothering you?”

“Um.”

The only answer is a floundering pause, and then the epiphany strikes. “Everything?” he suggests, and Bucky nods; the open gratitude in his eyes hurts.

So Tony ignores it and turns back to his tools, asks Bucky to ditch the shirt so he can reach the arm. He notices the hesitation but has the grace to feign oblivion, just riffles through some drawers for equipment and calls up the specs he’d taken when they first brought Bucky in months ago. He recognizes the wariness all too well—he lets almost no one near the reactor—and the awkwardness is just as understandable. After your sex tapes end up on YouTube, you either lose most of your body-image self-consciousness or go clinically insane; but during (and after) Afghanistan, that had changed about as thoroughly as his stance on weapons manufacturing. Something about hauling around a car battery literally wired to your chest, then having what amounts to a very sophisticated tin can embedded in your sternum, makes you a trifle camera shy, strangely enough. People calling you out on that awkwardness only makes it worse, no matter how good their intentions. This, too, is something with which he is better acquainted than most, knowing not to push, but he feels his eyebrows rise of their own volition and his eyes widen when he turns back to face Bucky.

“Holy _christ_ , man, I took a look at this thing five months ago and it wasn’t this bad! What _happened_?” he asks, aghast.

Even if the mere sight of Bucky had still triggered homicidal rage, he’d be appalled. It’s basic human empathy, because the scar tissue where skin meets metal is red and angry and probably infected, and Tony is altogether too capable of conceptualizing that sensation.

Bucky takes a sudden vested interest in the floor. “It—” He closes his eyes, draws in a breath, clenches his good hand into a white-knuckled fist he clearly thinks is out of Tony’s line of sight. “Control mechanism,” he explains at last, visibly forcing himself to meet Tony’s eye. “They deliberately fit it poorly. Every six to nine months or so, depending on how long I spent in cryo, they’d—” He pauses again, grits his teeth so hard Tony can see the muscles in his jaw jump. “—they’d cut back the skin. If they didn’t, it…well, it would do this instead. Something to do with the serum’s regeneration capabilities.”

“Jesus,” Tony breathes out, shaking his head in disbelief. He’d like to borrow from the South American cartels and set Bucky’s handlers on fire with car tires around their necks after tying them to trees. In too many ways, this is infinitely worse than the kill-switch poisons he’d found when Bucky first came in.

“I’m going to call Banner down here, if that’s okay,” he says. “That needs to breathe, and you need to not be attached to that damn thing anymore.” He shakes his head. “I was working on a redesign, but I didn’t want to push that on you. Except there’s no way we’re making you rely on a plastic surgeon for the rest of your life, and there is absolutely no reason for you to keep that torture device. If you’re good with it, I’ll have him come down and at least try to inject some local before I remove it, because that’s gonna hurt like a wicked bitch, and then I’ll work on finishing something that actually _fits_ you.”

In lieu of answering, Bucky just stares like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Tony feels the slow, hot burn of anger that anyone would dare inflict this on another human being. Until Bucky flinches violently away from him, holding up both hands in spite of how much the movement has to hurt.

“Never mind, I’m sorry, it’s fine,” he stammers out, tripping over the words as he scrambles to push himself to his feet and away.

It snaps Tony out of his fury, but it still takes a second for him to process what the fuck just happened. Then it’s his turn to hold up his hands, palms out and unthreatening—a mirror of himself and Steve behind that trailer in Sokovia—as he shakes his head.

“No, god, Barnes, I’m not mad at _you_ ,” he manages to articulate before Bucky goes right through the glass wall in his haste to put distance between them. “I’m mad at the animals who could come up with this shit in the first place.”

He deliberately _doesn’t_ contemplate the implications of that Pavlovian response: if he does, he’s just going to be pissed all over again, so he puts it on a shelf to mull over later, including whether or not he should bring it up with Steve. For now, he just stands as still as possible until Bucky finally stops looking like he’s trying to fend off a firing squad. Then he repeats, “Are you okay with Bruce coming down?” and Bucky nods slowly, sliding cautiously back to his seat. The only evidence of his earlier panic is the flush of color high on his cheekbones, and the too-rapid pace of his breathing.

JARVIS is already sending the message to Bruce, and Tony would kiss his AI if he could. Wherever Bruce had been, it must have been close—not two minutes later, he’s coming through the workshop door, medical bag in hand.

“Morning,” he says smoothly, as if this were just another day at the office. If his eyebrows hit his hairline about as fast as Tony’s did, the only reaction he voices aloud is a mild, “Ow.” Rummaging through his bag, he adds, “All I’ve got on hand right now is lidocaine, so we’ll see if this makes a dent.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky offers. “You could just pull it off. I’ll deal.”

“Yes, you would,” Bruce agrees amiably, “but that doesn’t mean you should have to.”

Sometime around three times the lethal-for-standard-biology dose, the pained look on Bucky’s face eases a little. Tony starts easing the prosthetic off, wincing in spite of himself as the movement tears away skin, drawing no small amount of blood. Bucky brushes off his apology, and Bruce nudges Tony aside to clean and dress the wounds.

“Give that a second, and then you’re good to go,” he says. “How are you for pain meds?”

“I’ll be fine,” Bucky says too quickly, and Bruce shoots him the universal doctor’s flat disbelief look of “oh, no you don’t”.

“Yes, you would,” he says again, “but that’s not what I asked.”

The answer comes slower this time, as though he’s trying to decide which of a mouthful of marbles he’s going to spit out. “I don’t know if they’ll have any…bad side effects,” he replies at last. No one in this room needs a translator to understand that what he really means is, “I don’t know if they’ll break my brain again”.

“Your metabolism isn’t quite as fast as Steve’s, but it’s up there,” Bruce says mildly. “At least let me give you something to take the edge off, help you come down enough to sleep—you don’t look like you’ve been getting much of that. I promise it’s not something that’ll keep you under when you’re trying to wake up.”

They’ve all been down the “stuck in a sedative haze trying to escape nightmares” road, and it’s a shitty superhero side effect that was conveniently omitted from the fine print. Again, there’s that gratitude in Bucky’s eyes, only this time it’s painted across his face, too, like this is the first time anyone’s just _understood_.

It probably is.

“I’m going to take some digital scans to make sure I have the measurements right,” Tony explains, but he waits for Bucky’s nod of consent before he has FRIDAY start, tweaking the existing preliminary schematics as the numbers roll in.

As he works, Bucky unexpectedly breaks the ensuing silence. “I know you,” he says to Bruce, half-statement and half-question, tone faltering slightly as though he expects to be physically rebuffed.

Blinking in surprise, Tony looks back and forth between the two of them, which is why he catches the moment when Bruce clearly decides to not sidestep the implied question. “That clinic in Croatia?” he offers, and relief floods Bucky’s face at the confirmation.

“Yes,” he says after a moment. “Thank you, for all of that.”

Bruce waves it off. “You thanked me then, too; it wasn’t any trouble.” At Tony’s quizzical expression, he explains, “We came across one another while we were both on the run.” His lips twist in acknowledgement of the irony. “Wasn’t even two weeks before you and Betty found me, but until we saw each other in medical I never made the connection.”

Smiling in spite of himself, Tony shakes his head and says, “Fake names?”

“So very fake.”

Tony laughs softly. “There’s a ‘small world’ joke in here somewhere,” he says dryly, then nods at the screen in front of him and looks back over at Bucky. “Okay, you’re good. I’ll get something drawn up and start working on an arm you can actually live with.”

“Take these—” Bruce produces three prescription bottles seemingly out of nowhere. “—and get some rest.” He hands one of the bottles to Bucky, then holds up the other two. “Antibiotics, though I doubt you need them, and superhero-prescription-strength NSAIDs, though it’s even odds if it makes a difference. Take a triple dose of Tylenol for a few days while you’re at it,” he adds, and nods at the bandaged arm. “Either sleep through the worst of that, or just sleep in general. You could use it.”

Bucky hesitates. “I don’t want to get you in some sort of trouble for this.”

Bruce blinks at him in surprise, then smiles. “You won’t. Officially I’m the wrong kind of doctor, but after a decade and change of trying to figure out the other guy’s biology, I have the training and a better understanding of the physiology in this place than the SHIELD docs do. No one asks, we don’t offer, and SHIELD’s one genuinely useful act in history is to make sure we’re legally covered on that front.”

Tony’s snort of amusement pulls the barest of smiles from Bucky. Still, he hesitates, but he pulls his shirt and sweater back on and accepts the proffered bottles. “Thanks,” he says, awkwardly, to both of them.

With one of those soft, mild-mannered, “I’m unthreatening” Bruce Banner smiles, Bruce just nods. What he doesn’t do is attempt to touch Bucky; neither of them do, and for that Bucky looks relieved. It occurs to Tony that he’s probably, sort of okay with company, for relative definitions of both “okay” and “company”, but human contact is a whole other planet away. He remembers that feeling, too.

On his way out the door, Bruce shoots Tony a pointed look behind Bucky’s back: they’re going to talk about all of this later, and there’s no way Tony’s getting out of it. Then it’s just him and Bucky left alone in the shop again.

“Okay,” Tony says to break the silence, dragging the word out as he busies himself with the holographics and endeavors to seem completely normal. “He’s a doctor, so I’d listen to him. Get some sleep or whatever, and JARVIS will let you know when this is done.”

He doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s gaze tracks him as he walks, or gestures with his hands, but for the first time since they found him Tony doesn’t feel like prey, or a mark of some kind.

“Thank you,” Bucky says again, and he offers Tony another of those small, tired smiles.

Shrugging, Tony reaches up half-consciously to brush his fingers across the reactor through the worn fabric of his AC/DC shirt. “I get it,” he replies after a moment, “living with pain like that.” It isn’t what he’d intended to say, but it works, somehow. “I can’t do much about mine, but I’m convinced yours is mostly due to bad tech, and that I _can_ fix. Hopefully once I’m done the physical part will be easier.”

Bucky nods, fingers toying nervously with his now-empty sleeve. “Steve says you’re a good man,” he says by way of response, the hard lines of his face softening minutely. “He was right.”

“Steve has an abnormally high opinion of me, which I think is his biggest flaw,” Tony replies with a self-effacing grin. He attempts to pass it off as a joke, thinks there’s no way Bucky knows him well enough to decipher the truth, but the other man shakes his head.

“He’s stubborn as a mule, but he’s always right—at least when it comes to things that matter.”

Then, as if to save Tony from having to formulate a response, he slips out of the workshop. It’s like he was never there, except for how he leaves the words rattling around in Tony’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Serbian is also drawn from tourist-guide phrasebooks; if you see something that’s wrong, please tell us!
> 
> Translations:  
> Шта се десило?—Šta se desilo—What happened?  
> Можете ли причати спорије?—Možete li pričati sporije?—Please speak more slowly.  
> Зовите хитну помоћ!—Zovite hitnu pomoć!—Call an ambulance!  
> У реду je—U redu je.—He’s okay.
> 
> Chapter title from Alexi Murdoch’s “Breathe”. Section titles from Mumford & Sons’ “Hopeless Wanderer”; Mumford & Sons’ “Lovers’ Eyes”; Kelly Clarkson’s “Nostalgic”; Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away”; Florence + the Machine’s “Conductor”; Florence + the Machine’s “Delilah”; The Lumineers’ “Gale Song”; Florence + the Machine’s “Mother”; and WB Yeats’ “Fergus and the Druid”.


	4. Part III: Let Me Fall into Your Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, life makes decisions for you—and doesn’t bother looping you in until too late. Our boys finally manage to go on a date; the team has a run-in with a certain Hell’s Kitchen superhero; then finally confronts the elephant in the room.
> 
> Just in time for yet another unplanned covert op.
> 
> Possibly they need a new system. Maybe. Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: acute portrayal of a PTSD flashback/panic attack; abrupt confrontation of a disability (i.e. rude, but justified; tread carefully); emotional upheaval and [misplaced] blame; trauma recovery and the confusion therein; mission-specific (canon-typical) physical violence; Hydra/Russia/Winter Soldier handlers being terrible people; mentions of torture
> 
> We apologise profusely for the delay in posting! Both of us ended up unexpectedly ill, drowning in work, or both; last_illusions got eaten by a road trip that half-killed her; and on top of that we realised very belatedly that, despite 2.5 years and a thousand edits, we were missing an entire scene. We hope the 50+K chapter sort of makes up for said delay, and we’ll be back on track with the next update! We have also probably been generous in our estimation of Bucky—and Natasha’s—recall, but on that we claim artistic licence and the fact that they did in fact successfully find a Winter Soldier facility in _CACW_.

**i. keep my love, my candle bright**

_14 June 2015_ ; _Geneva, Switzerland_

The first time Tony was in Geneva, he was on winter holiday from MIT before the last semester of his Master’s degrees. Officially, he was making the rounds of Western Europe on behalf of Stark Industries. Unofficially, he was there because he sorely needed a damn break. He spent some time skiing—flying, whether in the suit or from a pilot’s seat, still tops his list of favorite ways to move, but diving down black diamond slopes at breakneck speeds isn’t far behind—or catching up on the backlog of journal articles he hadn’t had a chance to read, or fiddling with R&D blueprints. He’d never wanted to leave, constantly searching even then for a place that felt like home, if only for a moment.

In the intervening years, he’s been back on more than one occasion: like every disgustingly wealthy individual, he has his share of bank accounts there; then the Large Hadron Collider became a reality, and no self-respecting physicist would have passed on _that_. But really, the thing he found most appealing about Geneva was his anonymity. To this day, he doesn’t know if it’s Europe, or just Switzerland, or him, or something else altogether, but he can be as high- or low-profile as he wants when he’s there. It’s a novel concept. He’s consulted with CERN and gone to the opera and a million other things, and even after that disaster of a conference in Bern all those years ago, it still feels like something of a safe haven.

Now, however, he can’t help thinking that it’s one more in a long line of things Ultron has—and will—take from him, one more thing he took from himself.

Somewhere between the seventh and tenth hearing (they all either lose count or flat-out give up on counting sometime after hearing five, unwilling to augment what’s already a constant, painful reminder), the UN summons him to Geneva. Lacking alternatives, he grits his teeth and goes. In some ways it’s nicer than their Manhattan headquarters, in the sense that if you have to be bashed in the head with a hard object, a rock is nicer than a boulder. And in this case, at least the view is nice. By now he could do this on autopilot, and he’s seriously contemplating the wisdom of attending these sessions _wearing_ the Iron Man suit so he can do exactly that. They always ask the same questions, after all, and he always gives them the same answers.

The only thing keeping his civility intact this time is the threat of the International Criminal Court and charges of war crimes. Realistically, no one believes it will actually happen: the powers that be might have the authority to drag Tony into the hearings alone, but they can no more justify hauling him to the Hague solo than they can justify indicting the entire rest of the team.

For one thing, no logical person would dream of bringing Captain America up on charges of war crimes, not unless he was literally caught in the act. On camera. For another, it’s debatable if you _can_ charge a demigod with anything under human law. But none of that is sufficient reason to keep the conservative right from screaming about it on Fox News on a nightly basis. While that’s hardly new, the announcement a week ago that the Avengers had the Winter Soldier in custody had only served to fan the fires already burning, and the liberal left is becoming increasingly critical. The team may have been anticipating that reaction and worse, but they can’t afford the risk no matter how many allies they might have if it came to a vote.

So Tony smiles and nods and delivers his statements with _just_ enough caustic bite to make it abundantly clear he’s not there to be a doormat. By the end of day three, he’s functionally asleep on his feet. He gets his wits about him enough to extract himself from the car, mumbling sincere if mildly incomprehensible thanks to his driver, and shoves his way through the journalists and paparazzi that have taken to congregating in front of the hotel’s main entrance. Everyone wants the sound bite or the proverbial money shot. Everyone is going to _get_ a broken face for their efforts if they keep this up.

(He never thought he’d miss the days when the money shots they wanted were the tawdry bedroom sort taken from rooftops with telephoto lenses and splashed across the front pages of tabloids. The universe just _had_ to prove him wrong.)

He manages to make it to the elevator unmolested, not bothering to stop and check with the concierge for messages. Anything they have will hold until tomorrow; he’d have been contacted directly if it was anything critical. The elevator itself is mercifully, blissfully empty, and he goes out of his way to avoid his own reflection in the gold-plated mirror. He’s all too aware of how wrung out he looks, of how it’s readily apparent to anyone with eyes that the only thing keeping him upright is the thought of a bed. But when the doors slide open and he steps out onto his floor—if he’s going to suffer through these bullshit hearings, he’s going to take whatever petty revenge he can; in this case, it comes in the form of the penthouse presidential suite, thank you kindly and fuck off—he thinks he’s dreaming. Or, possibly, actively hallucinating from extreme sleep deprivation. Because there is no other viable explanation for why, exactly, he’s seeing Steve Rogers sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall beside the door and a book in his hands.

Then Steve looks up and smiles, banishing any doubt Tony might have had about reality: when Steve smiles like that, the kind that lights up his whole face and makes his eyes bluer and his features softer, it’s better than any dream. Most of the time, imagination builds up the real thing to impossible standards. This isn’t one of those times.

“I’m gonna write this place a horrible TripAdvisor review,” he says in lieu of hello, unable to keep his own smile either out of his voice or off his face. “How can they let Captain America sit on the floor like a hobo?”

Steve huffs out a laugh, closing his book and sticking it back into one of the side pockets of his bag. “In their defense, they offered to let me in,” he replies, “but I wanted to wait, to see if…”

His sentence sort of trails off, and Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes. Because he knows what Steve’s attempting to not ask, and there is absolutely no universe in which he _wouldn’t_ want Steve there, where he’d send him straight back to New York instead of welcoming him in. He always wants Steve with him, seeing or hearing something that makes him search out Steve to tell him, just to watch his reaction. It’s abjectly terrifying, that depth of attachment, but he ruthlessly sidelines that thought and holds out a hand to draw Steve to his feet instead. It puts them right in each other’s personal space, so close Tony can feel the warmth of his body (human radiator, seriously). He smells like home, and the momentary buoyancy he’d felt at seeing Steve melts into lassitude; he’s still exhausted, but the disquietude he’s felt since he first boarded the jet for Geneva dissipates like water when someone pulls the plug from a drain.

“I’d let Captain America wait a bit,” Tony says at last, laughter in his voice as he leans into Steve as instinctively as a ship tracking a lighthouse. “That guy’s a little sanctimonious sometimes. But Steve Rogers? _He_ can come in.”

Steve kisses him in answer, sweet and chaste and perfect, and Tony sighs into it happily. If Steve weren’t actually holding him up, he’d be a puddle of goo on the floor.

“Then it’s a good thing I left my tights at home,” Steve says with a smirk when he pulls away.

This time Tony _does_ roll his eyes as he unlocks the door, laughing tiredly. “You people and spandex, I swear.”

“Hey, you designed half our uniforms.”

“Yes, and I took _out_ all the spandex.”

Steve grins, and Tony allows himself to be herded through the suite into the bedroom, too bone-weary to protest even if he’d wanted to. “So, are they letting you go home now?” Steve asks, tugging Tony to a halt long enough to slide his blazer off.

Undoing his tie one-handed, Tony shakes his head. “One more day. Or that’s what they tell me, anyway.” He snorts. “Any longer and I might just up and leave.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” Steve says, only half-joking.

“What can I say, I’m trying to keep our image from getting any _more_ tarnished than it already is.”

“Wait, that’s possible?” Steve asks, completely deadpan. In response, Tony punches him halfheartedly in the arm, with a poor man’s excuse for a glare that gets lost in a yawn.

“I’m going to ignore that like an adult and go take a shower before I fall asleep standing up,” Tony replies, holding for all he’s worth to the last drop of dignity he possesses. He was aiming for lofty; he mostly ends up at flat. Which, since he’s too damn exhausted to even take advantage of the unexpectedly well-stocked bar, is hardly a surprise.

He deposits the remainder of his clothes on the bed and stumbles somewhat blearily into the bathroom, turning the taps on and wishing fervently for JARVIS. Or, rather, he _has_ JARVIS, the hotel just lacks the wiring to allow an AI to take control. Technically, he _could_ rewire the place given three hours of sleep, a screwdriver, and some duct tape, but out of sheer petulance—why give them a free upgrade, really—he hasn’t.

A few minutes after he gets in, while he’s still standing there under the pulsing spray trying to remember what he’s supposed to do next, he hears the door slide open. Then there’s six feet of solid supersoldier standing behind him. “Mmm, hi,” he mumbles, leaning back into Steve’s open arms as his body melts with delight.

“Hi,” Steve answers, kissing the shell of his ear before trailing down the line of his neck. Tony’s body would love to have some fun; his brain can barely keep his eyes open. It’s a conundrum.

It must also show on his face, because Steve laughs, a low rumble in his chest that Tony feels more than hears. “I just spent an ungodly number of hours on a plane and desperately wanted a shower,” he informs Tony. “Also I don’t really want to explain to the UN that you won’t be showing up to the hearing because you slipped in the shower and knocked yourself out.”

“Hey, give me _some_ credit,” Tony grumbles without any real rancor. “I told you about that time with the supermodel in Berlin. No one died, and we were doing plenty more than standing there.”

Steve snorts, nose pressed to Tony’s hairline. “I do give you credit,” he retorts, squirting shampoo into his hand and massaging Tony’s scalp, eliciting a loud groan that would be embarrassing if it didn’t feel too good for Tony to care. “If I didn’t, I’d have just shoved you into bed.”

“That sounds far more interesting,” Tony says, but he’s slumped bonelessly against Steve, words almost a drunken mumble, “and please god don’t ever stop doing that.”

Steve willingly complies, bless him. Fifteen minutes later, they’re more or less clean, drying off and finding enough clothing to be decent in the event of, say, a fire alarm, or an alien invasion. Then they’re falling into bed.

To be fair, the falling is more Tony than Steve, but Steve joins him nonetheless and that’s really all that matters. He curls into Steve’s side, appropriating his shoulder as a pillow as usual. “This cannot be over soon enough,” he mutters.

“One more day,” Steve promises with forced cheer, but Tony appreciates the effort. “And I’ll be sitting outside glaring at people. You’ll have your own superpowered bodyguard—and wouldn’t Phil appreciate _that_ bit of irony—and someone big enough for you to hide from the press and go home. See? You’re done already.”

In spite of the dread already coiling snakelike in his belly, Tony laughs. “God, I love you,” he says before he’s properly thought that sentence through.

He freezes, abruptly so much more awake than he’d thought possible, and feels Steve go still beside him. Steeling himself for spending the night alone, for the inevitable pulling away that’s sure to follow, he does his level best to start edging away without looking up. Then Steve’s arm tightens around his shoulders, and his fingers are on Tony’s chin, tipping his head back just enough for Steve to kiss him soundly.

“I love you, too,” he says when they pull apart. His smile is bright and warm and shyly pleased, reaching all the way up into his eyes and turning them electric blue in the light of the arc reactor.

Tony’s trying to get the startled owl look off his face; he doesn’t think he’s succeeding. His heart is doing a funny thing in his chest, like a heart attack but with less tragedy. He doesn’t have the first clue what to say, but looking at Steve’s face—more open than he’s ever seen it—tells him he doesn’t have to say anything at all. For the moment, it’s enough.

“Now sleep,” Steve says, kissing him again.

Tony, much to his own surprise, does.

\----------

_15 June 2015_

He wakes to an empty bed, the grey, pre-dawn light of a too-early morning throwing shadows across the room. He can feel the nascent tightness in his chest that has nothing to do with the reactor or an impending heart attack, but it lasts only for a moment, stopped in its tracks by the sound of footsteps entering the bedroom and the familiar aroma of fresh, dark coffee.

“Oh, morning,” Steve says when he notices Tony’s awake.

He’s enveloped in one of the hotel’s exorbitantly soft bathrobes, opened at the collar, and barefoot against the plush cream carpet. Tony likely shouldn’t find all of it, from the curl of his toes to the errant strand of hair falling across his forehead, so wholly adorable, yet he does. It’s becoming a trend with him.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Steve continues, coming to sit on the edge of the bed, his hip against Tony’s knee.

Shaking his head, Tony blinks the sleep from his eyes, corners of his mouth curving in a pleased smile despite the pre-caffeinated morning sluggishness. “I thought I was still asleep, but you’re not naked and in my bed, so this is definitely not a dream.”

With a fond roll of his eyes, Steve leans down to kiss him, tasting of mint toothpaste and bitter coffee. It’s far hotter a combination than it really has any logical right to be. “Sweet talker,” he says as he pulls away. He trails his hand down Tony’s throat to settle over his collarbones, thumb stroking an absentminded rhythm that leaves goosebumps in its wake. With all the sharp clarity of a million neurons firing at once, Tony knows that he’s completely gone for this man. “I have breakfast, coffee, and another one of these bathrobes. Acceptable substitute?”

The magic of the moment crumples as if it’s been dragged headlong into a retaining wall, when Tony remembers why they’re in that hotel room to begin with. Another protracted day of unceasing questions, of accusations, of being forcibly dragged beneath the metaphorical bus looms ahead—he would rather face his own execution.

Steve’s expression softens. “One more day, and then it’s over. We can go home soon.”

“You’re staying.” The words come out more like a question than Tony had intended, with an undercurrent of relief; he blames the lack of coffee.

“I promised you’d have a superpowered bodyguard, didn’t I?” Steve replies with a crooked, endearing smile. It’s not enough to mute the apprehension lurking beneath Tony’s skin, but it does at least fade further into background noise.

“Yeah, you did.” Steve nods decisively, like that just solved some cosmic problem. He makes to get up, but Tony’s hand shoots out to catch his wrist. “Hey,” he says when Steve turns back toward him, and if his stomach is in knots again, it’s for entirely new (better) reasons.

Steve looks at him quizzically but smiles all the same. “Hey.”

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, Tony lets that point of contact, Steve’s wrist beneath his hand, anchor him, balance out his nerves. “I meant what I said last night,” he says like a peace offering, “and I should’ve said it sooner, because it’s not like I didn’t already know that a while ago, but…” He trails off, smile wry and apologetic; he can’t help but be acutely aware of the flutter of Steve’s pulse under his trembling fingers. “We both know I’m terrible at that, at saying the right thing at the right time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t mean it.”

He’s rambling, and trying not to fidget like an antsy five-year-old. Except Steve is doing that thing where he gives you his whole attention, face and body language clear and open in a way that inexplicably makes _Tony_ feel like the one who’s vulnerable and on display. Having anyone look at him like that is disconcerting; but having Steve do it is overwhelming beyond words. Before he can respond, Steve is leaning into his space and kissing him fiercely, taking his breath away.

“I love you, too,” Steve murmurs into the space between them when he pulls away, and the words nestle in Tony’s chest, happiness blooming between his ribs.

“Good. That’s good,” he says, aiming for flip and instead coming far too close to sincere for comfort, but Steve just leans in and kisses him again. Then he pauses, looking around for a clock. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Half-six, why?”

Steve looks puzzled, but Tony’s grinning even through the kiss. He feels energized, his whole body sparking with the electric force of a storm worthy of Thor himself. His heart is beating too hard in his chest, but it’s _good_ —so good, like he’s floating away on a cloud of happiness, and no drug high has ever felt this perfect.

He tugs Steve down until they’re both a tangle of arms and legs, lost in a storm of lazy kisses. “My driver doesn’t arrive until nine-thirty, so let’s not be morning people for once and stay like this for a while.”

“I was gonna offer coffee,” Steve says between kisses, “but your plan sounds better.”

Laughing, Tony rests his head on Steve’s chest, feeling every one of Steve’s breaths as he trails his fingers across the skin in idle patterns, watching its rise and fall under his palms.

“I’m annoyed how I keep having to remind you I’m a genius,” Tony says, and when Steve laughs he can feel the way his muscles go taut.

“I’m sorry, your ego must be shattered,” Steve says with a straight face, but Tony can hear the smile in his voice.

“Wrecked,” he agrees, looking up, and god, he can’t stop smiling. It feels ridiculous on his face, but his muscles refuse to listen to logic, so he keeps smiling and says, “We have two hours.”

“We haven’t had two hours to ourselves in—” Steve pauses to think about it, then gives up with a sigh, concluding, “In way too long.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, caressing Steve’s thighs and taking too much pleasure in the way the muscles seem to tremble beneath his hands. He’s seen Steve run twenty miles, fight and kick and leap like a gymnast, all without ever shaking like that; yet one touch from Tony is all it takes to have that perfect, supersoldier body unravel. It’s exhilarating. It’s addictive. It’s the kind of drug he never wants to give up.

Drawing back, Tony stops to just _look_ at the man in front of him. He’s struck by a wave of lust that’s enough to make his toes curl, but accompanied by something deeper, softer. It settles in his chest like it’s planning to make a home there, and he’s startled to find the thought doesn’t trigger his flight response.

He wants to keep this moment slow, something that’s intimately theirs, and when Tony presses his lips in a featherweight kiss to the pulse point under his jawline, Steve gasps. His fingers dig into Tony’s skin like a freeclimber seeking a handhold, but there’s no demand inherent in the gesture, and Tony knows— _feels_ —that Steve wants the same thing.

For this moment to never end.

“Tony.” His name breaks from Steve’s lips like an insuppressible plea, and Tony shivers, whole body convulsing with a feeling he could never name. He’d never thought just one word, much less his own name, could have that effect on him, leaving him bare and open to the world.

“I’ve got you, baby,” Tony murmurs, fingers trailing ever so gently across exposed skin. “I’ve got you, I promise.”

They take their time, lazy and languid in movements and gestures; a kiss here, an exploring caress there, goosebumps rising after every slow, searching touch. Despite the sense of ease, the arousal still builds, gradual and all the more perfect for the way the greedy, happy desire curls in Tony’s stomach, lighting his body up from the inside.

“Tony, babe.” Steve’s hand slides to cup the back of Tony’s head, the touch grounding in its essence, and his words are followed by a lingering kiss. “You feel so good.”

“I want you, so much, I want you all to myself,” Tony says hoarsely, his voice sounding wrecked even to his own ears.

In response, Steve’s fingers tighten in his hair with a new kind of beautiful desperation. Tony holds onto him, takes every touch, every tremor, every sound Steve has to offer, his senses saturated with Steve’s presence, with his taste, his smell, the comfort of his touch. Steve pets his hair with shaking hands as he breaks under Tony’s mouth and body, letting go and giving himself over to Tony completely, a trembling mess as he drowns in pleasure. Tony’s nails have marked Steve’s hipbones, and he forces himself to relax his grip, running his fingers gently over the red half-moons he’s scratched into Steve’s golden skin. Then Steve breathes out a moan and cups Tony’s face in big, strong hands to kiss him, deep and long. Tony loses himself in it with reckless abandon.

Steve’s hands never leave his face, thumbs stroking gently over his cheeks, and they kiss and kiss until they have to break away for air. Even then, neither of them go far, and Tony drops his forehead to Steve’s and smiles. He can’t seem to stop doing that when they’re together, too much happiness bubbling beneath his skin to contain.

“Come on,” Steve says, coaxing him gently up the bed.

Not that Tony needs much persuasion, but he suddenly finds himself on his back, blanketed by Steve’s warm body and Steve’s hot mouth trailing kiss after kiss over his lips and face and throat. Tony’s close to bursting at the seams from lust and joy, and Steve must be able to feel it as he whispers Tony’s name over his skin, hand brushing over his chest, his hips, the insides of his thighs. The shock of being touched is enough to have Tony arching right off the bed, but Steve holds him there with a kiss, steadies him with a hand on his hip. Tony’s eyes flutter closed, and in that moment it’s enough simply to lose himself in Steve’s touch and his own mounting pleasure. In that moment, nothing else matters, his world reduced to one shining point, to the air between his lips and Steve’s, to the sounds of skin against skin. He’s burning, sweaty and hot with desire, and tension melts his spine, turns his insides liquid. Keeping his eyes closed, he lets pleasure take control, tumbling over the edge with a moan.

When he finally comes back to himself, his head is pillowed comfortably on Steve’s shoulder, rocked gently by the rhythm of Steve’s breathing. Their legs are tangled together, and he sighs, curling more closely around Steve like a giant cat and reveling in the simple fact that he can.

He never wants to leave this bed.

He says as much, and Steve presses his lips to the top of Tony’s head with a chuckle.

“I know,” Steve says, settling his hand on Tony’s hip in a gesture of comfort. “As soon as the hearing is over today, I’ll have everything packed and the car will be ready. We’ll be home by evening.”

On the tip of Tony’s tongue is an impulsive “Let’s leave now,” but he knows better than to speak it, that not facing the day isn’t an option. Fine; no one anywhere said that meant he had to like it. His train of thought must be more transparent than he’d intended, since Steve tips Tony’s chin up with gentle fingers until they’re eye-to-eye.

“A few more hours, okay?” he says, and damn if the absolute surety in his eyes, the conviction that things will be fine, doesn’t have Tony nodding before he knows it.

“And then we go home,” Tony agrees. Steve’s answering smile is bright as sunlight breaking over the horizon, a cliche Tony would have sworn up, down, and sideways he’d never use. Now he can’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it, not when faced with the warmth that still suffuses his body.

Home. The word feels strange on his lips—not wrong, or even empty the way it used to, except for Pepper, just strange, a feeling he isn’t quite used to yet. But it also seems fitting, like entering into something so new it’s frightening and having the certainty that it’s where he’s supposed to be. So he leans in and kisses Steve, nipping at his lower lip.

“Okay. I can do this,” he says, pulling back with a contemplative look. “But only because you’ve finally overcome your fear of room service and ordered coffee.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve pokes him in the ribs, and Tony squirms away, laughing. “You make it sound like a phobia. It’s not fear, I just think it’s ridiculous to make people walk up to your room and bring you something you can get yourself with your own two legs,” Steve points out, growing increasingly animated the way he always does when the topic comes up. Tony can’t help finding it adorable, biting down on the inside of his cheek to refrain from laughing harder.

“You do know they don’t actually walk up, right?” he says, one eyebrow raised. “There are elevators—or did they not get you up to date about those, old man?”

“Gee, shucks, Mister Stark, I’m still at the figuring-out-coal sequence of my life,” Steve drawls back, eyes narrowing.

Tony’s restraint crumbles, and he drops his forehead to Steve’s chest, attempting vainly to breathe through the torrent of giggles. A beat later, Steve follows suit, his deep laugh vibrating through his chest. By the time they’ve both regained their composure, Tony’s face hurts from smiling.

“Did that act ever work on anyone?”

“You’d be surprised,” Steve answers with an impish grin, and leans over to kiss his forehead again, right hand tracing soothing circles across Tony’s back. “There _is_ coffee, though. They brought it up earlier, but I think it’s gotten cold by now,” he adds casually. “We sort of got distracted.”

Groaning, Tony flops over onto his back, mouth twitching uselessly against a grin. “God, how did anyone _ever_ think you were a poor innocent boy from the forties?” he mutters. “You let expensive coffee go cold while seducing me with your century-old wiles.”

Shrugging unapologetically, Steve stretches his arms languidly over his head. “You’re just so easy to seduce, how could I pass that up?” Then he smiles angelically. “Besides, I think I was more the seducee than the seducer.”

“One, ‘seducee’ is not a word. And two, you’re lucky you have a godlike ass, else I’d be forced to throw you out of this bed.”

Steve snorts, shoving lightly at Tony’s shoulder. “Sure you would. Coffee?” he asks, and Tony seriously contemplates saying no. Steve’s lips are soft, and Steve’s body is warm and solid and reassuring against his, but he leans in to steal another kiss, just a quick brush of lips, and pushes himself upright.

“Coffee, yes, please. Or else I’ll have to debauch you again.”

“Coffee,” Steve concurs, rolling his eyes fondly, and Tony takes a moment to appreciate the view as the sheets fall away. Steve’s skin is still flushed across the planes of his chest, his cheeks, his hair standing on end like a hedgehog, and all Tony can think is, _I will never get tired of seeing you like this. I will never stop being amazed that you chose me_.

The coffee is every bit as cold as Steve predicted, but still exquisite for all that. Plus, the room is equipped with the modern wonder of a microwave, so they take their mugs and curl up on the behemoth of a living room sofa with a StarkPad to break the mood of the morning. Tension about the upcoming confrontation is already wending through his body, but it’s less pervasive than usual. Tony chooses to attribute that to Steve and his knee pressed up against Tony’s, to the casual kisses peppered across his shoulders and his temple, to the way Steve holds on like he’s trying to be a human shield.

They run through the talking points for the sessions, and the non-urgent news from home that had come in overnight. Maria sent the revised plans for the new Avengers HQ, and Natasha video chats them for a few minutes, heckling them over being attached at the hip and offering to come and glare at the assembly if Tony so desires. It’s the equivalent of a long-distance hug, and he can’t help but smile.

When the driver calls to say he’ll pick them up in half an hour, it’s harder than usual for Tony to force himself to his feet. In the bathroom, he splashes cold water across his face and meets his own reflection in the mirror. He draws in one deep breath, then another, until his shoulders stop hovering around his ears; he thinks of Steve, of home, and nods to himself. It’s his mantra for the day, the word he’ll repeat to avoid doing anything stupid enough to keep him from getting on the plane. _Home_.

“Okay,” he says, striding back into the bedroom, “let’s do this.”

Steve’s already dressed, and Tony can’t help a flash of self-satisfaction when he notes the soldier’s hair isn’t nearly as regulation-perfect as usual, that his lips are redder than normal. The rest of him, however, looks as impeccable as he always does, in a charcoal suit on the opposite side of the spectrum from his silvery grey shirt, with a cobalt tie Tony’s startled to realize is patterned like the transparent projection monitors. Of course, Steve notices him noticing and smirks.

“You’re incorrigible,” he says, eyes shining with mirth.

Tony simply shrugs—live and let live, right?—and turns toward the closet to retrieve his own black Tom Ford, a smile plastered across his face. Socks, slacks, shirt, tie, and he’s searching the dresser for his cufflinks when Steve grabs his hand and tugs him closer.

“Here, let me help,” he offers, opening his hand to reveal the missing cufflinks, the silver ones in the shape of Steve’s shield. “Good choice,” Steve adds, looking up at Tony through his lashes with a small, pleased smile that reaches all the way to his eyes.

“I’m a man of elevated taste,” Tony says loftily.

The smile remains on Steve’s face while he works, letting his fingers linger on Tony’s hand, the inside of his wrists. It’s enough to set Tony’s heartbeat fluttering.

“I love you.” The words tumble from his lips like a cascade, like an avalanche, breathless and rapid. It’s still unfamiliar, stringing those words together in that order, but they leave his chest in the space of a heartbeat, sliding over his tongue like they were always meant to be there. Maybe neither of them had expected this, any of this, but for one brilliant second Tony knows they both mean it.

Steve’s smile turns soft and faintly surprised, and he tightens his grip on Tony’s hand. “I love you, too,” he answers, leaning forward to catch Tony’s mouth in a kiss, undemanding and gentle.

Tony holds that kiss close as they make their way down to the waiting town car, and throughout the rest of the day. He keeps Steve’s words with him even as he stands before the metaphorical firing squad for hours, even as the assembly tries its level best to forcibly separate him from everything he has.

By the time they conclude, it’s well past seven. They hadn’t so much as broken for lunch, but he wants to be home more than he wants to eat. Steve, the saint that he is, is still waiting outside, sitting on one of the disgracefully uncomfortable benches with a book in his hands. As far as Tony’s concerned, the man deserves a medal for remaining there the entire damn day, and so does security for keeping the press away from him. He, after all, is not the one on trial.

Tony anticipates the flash of cameras and clamor of questions that surge the moment the door opens, and he delivers a flat “no comment” fourteen times before Steve comes to stand between them, a human bastion. For that alone, Tony could kiss him on the spot.

“Want to talk?” Steve asks later, once they’ve boarded the jet and the door has been sealed.

He hasn’t stopped touching Tony since he emerged from the hearings—a hand on his shoulder, his lower back, fingers intertwined as soon as they were out of sight of the press. Neither of them have spoken much, but the contact speaks volumes, and that’s more than sufficient for Tony.

“No,” he says, leaning in to kiss Steve instead, sighing with pleasure when Steve’s lips part under his.

“Okay,” Steve replies, and lets the subject drop, accepting the quiet and tugging Tony against his side.

He presses his lips to the crown of Tony’s head, and Tony relaxes with each breath, each heartbeat, letting his head rest against Steve’s shoulder as the setting sun streams through the windows.

 

**ii. before each beginning, there must be an ending**

_16 June 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Steve stares mournfully at the pile of clothing on his bed and sighs. A mere forty-five minutes ago, all of it was hanging neatly in his closet, perfectly arranged and color-coordinated. Now it looks rather like the closet exploded, and the only progress Steve has made is in the grudging realization that perhaps Clint is right—he really does have a plaid problem.

Had someone asked him an hour ago, he’d have said of course he wasn’t nervous about the evening. The haphazard mess of his bedroom would call him a liar. He knows full well that it’s illogical, that he has no reason to be nervous. As chaotic and muddled as these past few years have been, and as frustrating and confusing as this relationship has been, Tony himself remains the one thing that makes any sense at all. Which is saying something.

If only knowing that did anything to curtail the anxiety churning in his gut, because this is their first date, and Steve wants— _needs_ —it to be perfect. God knows they deserve it, even if they’ve gone about this whole thing backwards, and all they’re asking is one night to themselves free of the titles and the celebrity and the obligations, just two guys named Tony and Steve. It had certainly taken them long enough to get on the same page, with their lives and with this relationship, to reach a point where they were even ready to take the leap together instead of careening along parallel tracks that only intersected by happenstance and catastrophe. It’s too damn bad that apparently isn’t enough.

Tapping his bare feet on the polished hardwood, Steve blows out a frustrated breath. He picks up a pale blue shirt the shade of faded hydrangeas, stares at it for a moment, then throws it back onto the bed with a groan. A beat. He retrieves it.

“The red one.”

A decade of training and three years in close quarters with Natasha Romanova are the only things that keep him from jumping a foot in the air, and he glances over his shoulder to offer the intruder a smile.

“Red? Really?”

Bucky’s slouched against the doorframe, both hands tucked into the front pocket of an oversized hoodie Steve thinks might originally have belonged to Thor. There’s the faintest hint of apprehension in the lines around his eyes and mouth, the set of his shoulders, but there’s also a tiny curl of amusement playing at his lips as he shrugs. It’s perhaps the third time he’s actually come up to Steve’s floor, preferring the isolation of his own quarters or the neutrality of the common area. And while it chips away at Steve’s heart every time, he does his level best not to push—he’s too well acquainted with the desire for quietude, the desperation to make sense of a world too new and strange for familiarity to ever be at hand.

Turning his back to his friend, a half-conscious gesture of trust as he reaches for the shirt in question, he wonders idly how long Bucky had been standing there in order to distinguish it from the mess of fabric. It’s rich and smooth in his hands, the color of that French cabernet sauvignon Nat and Pepper prefer to drink. Now that he’s holding it, the choice seems obvious.

“I was leaning more toward the blue,” he says, gesturing at the one he’d been holding when Bucky first spoke.

With a sigh, the other man steps fully into the room, coming up beside Steve and facing him. “I think it’s time I told you,” he says somberly, pinning Steve with a look so grave it heralds death announcements and declarations of war. “There’s something I’ve been keeping from you for over seventy years.” He pauses, long enough to make Steve decidedly twitchy, then informs him, “Blue makes you look like a complete dweeb.”

Steve blinks and feels his jaw drop, while Bucky just keeps staring steadily at him, expression unwavering. It’s only because Steve _knows_ him, knows him even now, that he registers the spark of mischief in his friend’s eyes.

“You,” Steve says slowly after a moment, fighting the grin spreading across his face, “are a fucking asshole.”

Bucky looks away, but there’s a smile playing at his lips. It’s like Steve remembers, the way Bucky used to smile practically with his whole body, happiness exuding from every pore when he felt it, and right now it’s the most incredible thing Steve’s ever seen. This might well be the first genuine, unprompted smile he’s seen on the other man’s face since the bridge, and he feels his own grin broaden in answer.

“Hey, it’s the truth,” Bucky replies with a shrug, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“I forgot what a jackass you could be, you know that?” Steve says reflexively. Immediately, he regrets it, as Bucky’s shoulders tense so sharply it’s visible even under the hoodie engulfing him.

He’s opening his mouth to apologize, wishing he could snatch the words from where they’re suspended midair and rip them to shreds, but before he can speak Bucky draws in a deep breath. It’s audible against the awkward silence, and he releases it with a faint huff of a laugh.

With a tentative smile, he deadpans, “I forgot how terrible you were at dating, so let’s call it even.” Lifting his chin as he speaks, he meets Steve’s eyes squarely, determination apparent in his eyes despite the wash of fear.

Steve snaps his mouth shut against the apology still begging to break free and smiles back. Besides, he remembers how irritating the constant apologies had been right after he woke up, how he’d always ended up trying to make other people feel better about what had happened to _him_. He might empathize with their instincts a little more now, but that doesn’t make it less obnoxious on the receiving end.

When the tension eases from the lines of Bucky’s body, he barely restrains his fistpump. For the first time since he’d heard the name Winter Soldier, the realization that the man in front of him isn’t the Bucky he’d met in Brooklyn isn’t accompanied by a sharp stab of regret. This may not be the old Bucky, but it’s still _his_ Bucky, his best friend. A touch broken, a measure quieter, perhaps, but the same things could be said of Steve himself. It’s still them, with a history that evokes memories of shared cigarettes on the docks, of cold yet perfectly quiet nights in their dingy apartment, of New York opening up before their feet. Because if there was ever an absolute truth in Steve’s life, it’s this: Bucky never surrenders, doesn’t know the word “quit” even exists. He’s trying, still fighting, standing here joking with Steve in defiance of seventy years of programming. All Steve needs to do is let him be.

“I’m sorry we can’t all be suave like you,” he drawls.

The last of the wariness falls from Bucky’s posture, and he smirks. “Gotta be born with it, buddy.”

It’s strikingly familiar, like something he’d have said before the war. “Please, stop. The modesty is just too much, I’m drowning.”

Bucky snorts, eyeing the clothes littering the bed. “You mean like you’re drowning in plaid?”

“Oh, shut up,” Steve grumbles, then takes a chance, elbowing Bucky lightly in the ribs.

This time, Bucky doesn’t flinch, just lifts a pointed eyebrow. “Was there a sale?” he asks, like Steve hadn’t said anything.

Steve groans. “Oh my god, I get it, okay? No more plaid.”

“Good,” Bucky replies, nodding imperiously. “I think it’d be great if you and Tony could get to date two without blinding him.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, unable to help the way his voice softens, or the undoubtedly dopey smile blooming on his lips, “me, too.”

He can’t even bring himself to take offense at what he thinks will be Bucky’s inevitable ribbing, but his friend gives him an assessing look, thoughtful and more than a little pleased. Tipping his head in the direction of the ensuite, Bucky sighs in mock exasperation.

“Go, change. I’ll guard the all-American-rejects pile.”

With another roll of his eyes, Steve does as told. He keeps the jeans Natasha had all but ordered him to wear—they’re tighter than is his wont, but he trusts her opinion more than his own when it comes to what non-fieldgear items look good on him—and attempts to style his hair so it looks less like something out of the forties. If you ask him, it doesn’t look half as good as Tony’s, but then Steve’s never been entirely certain if that was intentional styling, or simply a side effect of two days straight in the workshop.

When he gets back into the bedroom, he finds Bucky on the bed, having rearranged the discard pile into a backrest.

“So?” he asks, with the futile hope that the nerves he can still feel fluttering in his chest aren’t audible in his voice.

Bucky gives him a slow once-over, then grins broadly. “Stark won’t stand a chance,” he declares, and Steve draws in a deep breath.

“Good,” he says, nodding as though he actually believes it. “Thanks, that’s…good.”

“Stop being nervous,” Bucky orders fondly.

Steve opens his mouth for a token protest, then doesn’t even bother. Groaning, he draws both hands down his face and chances a glance at Bucky over his fingertips. “Is it that obvious?”

Shaking his head, Bucky replies, “No. I don’t think Tony would notice, anyway,” he adds with a crooked smile. “The bastard’s kinda head over heels for you—you know that, right?”

Warmth suffuses Steve’s entire face at that, settling over his skin. Unlike the burn of embarrassment, though, this feels oddly comforting, like sitting beside an open fire on a quiet night, and the churning uncertainty in the pit of his stomach is finally seems to settle. “I think I’m head over heels for him, too,” he admits, that same dopey smile returning to his mouth.

Bucky smiles like he’s not entirely conscious of it, faint and curling at the edges of his lips, the corners of his eyes. “I know,” he says, fond and warm. Then he cuts his gaze away, biting at his bottom lip, and when he speaks again there’s a current of gentleness in his voice. “There isn’t a lot I remember,” he offers, quickly, like he’s trying to preempt Steve’s automatic apology. “Most of it’s muddled, like an old movie I’ve seen a million times but can’t remember the plot or the ending. But some of it’s still sharp as if it happened yesterday.” He shrugs and grins, quick and bright with a faraway look dawning in his eyes. “I remember Peggy—remember how you looked at her.” And when he looks back at Steve, something Steve thinks might be happiness crosses his face. “You look at him—at Tony—just like that. Like you’ve found…joy.”

“Yeah.” The word barely avoids becoming a croak, squeaking past the constricting of Steve’s throat.

“I wish the world had gone differently sometimes,” he adds, with a slightly bitter twist to his lips, “but not when it comes to this. I’m happy for you, Steve, happy you found this.”

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve manages to say, “I just wish—”

“Hey,” Bucky interrupts before he can finish, pushing himself off the bed and coming to stand perhaps a foot away from Steve, “I’m getting there, okay? Stop worrying.”

Steve sees the pleased, tranquil curve of Bucky’s smile, the determination in his eyes, and nods. Bucky’s smile brightens in answer—not by much, but enough to be noticeable.

“Okay, good. Now go get your man. I think he even got you flowers.”

Laughing in spite of himself, Steve lets himself be ushered into the elevator. Bucky gives him one last encouraging smile, pressing their shoulders together. Then he pauses. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Do they still give the shovel talk these days?”

Steve chokes on nothing, and by the time the elevator doors slide open, Bucky’s still laughing at him.

 

**iii. learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know**

_16 June 2015_ ; _Manhattan - Brooklyn, New York_

Like clockwork, Steve steps through the elevator doors into the penthouse foyer at five-thirty on the dot. Tony looks up when he hears the chime, and he can _feel_ the besotted smile manifesting on his face like someone flipped a switch. He’s pretty sure his expression falls just too far this side of fatuous, especially for Tony Stark, but he also conveniently can’t bring himself to care all that much. Not, at least, when all six-feet-plus of Steve Rogers is standing there in a silk-blend button-down the rich claret of pyrope garnets, and dark-wash jeans that are almost more black than blue.

“God _damn_ I must have been a saint in a former life,” he says before he can stop himself. The blush that creeps up Steve’s face, and the shy smile that turns up the corners of his mouth and brightens his eyes, stops any burgeoning regret cold in its tracks.

Steve moves past the entryway as Tony steps through the kitchen, meeting him halfway. “I think you’re doing pretty well in this one,” he says, fingers coming to rest beneath Tony’s chin as he leans in for a kiss. He’s got that bone-meltingly warm look in his eyes that makes Tony feel like they’re the only two people in existence and nothing can possibly go wrong, but before they get carried away Steve pulls back. Tony sighs dramatically, pouting at him, and Steve chuckles softly. “Missing a reservation on your first date is bad luck, I think.”

“You’re getting terrible, terrible advice on your superstitions,” Tony retorts, but he gestures at the elevator anyway. “Lobby or garage?”

“Either—though I thought we could maybe take the subway and then walk?”

“Does that mean you’re finally going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Not a chance.”

“Buzzkill,” Tony grumbles.

“Oh, I’m aiming for exactly the opposite,” he murmurs, right in Tony’s ear. Then the elevator doors pop open, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“You are awful.”

“And you love me for it.”

“Yeah, damnit, I do,” Tony replies with a grin.

As they emerge onto the sidewalk, he and Steve both don sunglasses and head for the tunnel entrance of the nearest subway stop at 57th Street, making idle small talk in the time it takes for them to get into Brooklyn proper. The sheer dearth of pressure and the leisurely pace are a welcome reprieve from the chaos of the last nine months, and Tony lets Steve lead as they meander through the city. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s aware he should be more wary, more alert. Yet he trusts Steve implicitly in a way he’s never known how to express, for reasons that have nothing to do with Captain America and everything to do with the kid from Brooklyn. _Not_ anticipating the psychotic break or K &R attempt might be a sad statement on his life, but it’s a refreshing way to go on an actual date with someone he cares about.

After about forty-five minutes of walking, Steve starts looking a little lost. His confusion prompts Tony to finally take stock of their surroundings in more than a cursory registration of street names.

“Wait,” he says, tugging Steve to a stop. “Are you looking for Il Focolare?”

Steve pauses. “Um, yes?”

“Ah,” Tony says with a grin. “Yeah, it’s like one of those Russian nesting dolls, or a rat maze, or something. This way.”

Five minutes and five hundred turns later, Steve, the Brooklyn native, looks increasingly baffled, which Tony just finds stupidly endearing. He’s brought them to a nondescript, three-story brownstone, and Steve reaches around Tony to hold the heavy, dark oak door open.

“After you,” he says with a cheesy flourish, and Tony snorts.

Whacking him lightly on the back of the head as he passes, he adds, “Nerd,” and gets a muffled laugh in answer.

No sooner has the door shut behind them than Jenny Donata appears. Perhaps an inch shorter than Tony himself, she doesn’t look her age—her blonde hair is greying beautifully, but that’s her only concession to time, and in that she’s always reminded Tony a little of Peggy.

Well, that, and her “I will not take your bullshit” approach to essentially everyone; he’d brought Peggy here once for lunch, and he’s pretty certain the two of them could’ve taken over the world. She hugs Tony warmly, then hugs Steve, much to Tony’s amusement and Steve’s startled surprise.

“Your table’s ready,” she says, leading them through a crowded but surprisingly quiet main room into the back garden. There’s only one open table there, along with two chairs and a tiny vase of wildflowers. It’s startlingly peaceful, the ubiquitous noise of New York City muffled by the canopy of trees surrounding them.

“You know, Pepper gave me the address, and I swear I memorized the actual directions, but I still would never have managed to find my way here,” Steve says as they take their seats. “How do you know so many of these places?”

Tony just grins and shrugs. “Live in Manhattan long enough, at some point you want to get away from all the loud touristy places where you can’t hear yourself think.”

“Point,” Steve acknowledges.

Then Jenny is back with two glasses of water and two tiny cups of the restaurant’s signature cappuccino. “House special?” she asks Tony, who smiles at her and shakes his head.

“Like I’d ever be stupid enough to do otherwise,” he scoffs, and she laughs. “Thanks, Jenny.”

The food is out with shocking celerity, especially in an overcrowded place like central New York, but it makes the entire thing wonderfully seamless against the past several months of unrelenting stress and agitation and anger. They talk about everything (how much the city has changed since Steve last really lived in Brooklyn; the way Tony had learned to disappear into the hidden corners to find places like this restaurant) and nothing (the weather; the flight back from Geneva; Tony’s last ski trip in the Swiss Alps that involved Rhodey almost braining himself on a tree) as Jenny slips in and out with new dishes neither of them had ever actually ordered. She treats Tony like she always has, which is to say rather like a wayward grandson of whom she’s overly fond and prone to spoiling; he treats her like a favorite aunt, with a warmth and openness in his expression and voice that has Steve doing repeated double-takes in what he clearly thinks is a subtle manner. Tony doesn’t have the heart to point out the truth.

\----------

By the time their main courses arrive, they’re on their second bottle of wine (Tony refuses to let Steve see the prices—on anything—because, he claims, cardiac arrest kind of kills the romance in the middle of a date). The sun is out, bright but not baking thanks to the swooping linden trees overhead and the long shadow of the building. Their only companions are an elderly couple at the opposite corner of the garden, and a grad student so engrossed in her book it’s doubtful she’d notice a robbery unless the robber made a grab for the book itself. It’s the most peaceful afternoon Steve has had in months.

Or, rather, it would be if Tony weren’t constantly, absently fidgeting, tapping his fingers against the wine glass and making it hum, or jiggling his foot against the leg of his chair. It’s as though he’s waiting for armed bandits to jump out of the shrubbery and over the fence. Steve waits him out for a while, in the hopes that the food and the atmosphere and conversation will do the trick, but when he’s refilled both their glasses and Tony’s still edgy as a green yearling, he gives up.

Leaning forward across the table, he kisses Tony abruptly, completely sans warning or preamble. The motion shifts the small table just enough to have the dishes clinking faintly against each other, and Tony’s mouth opens beneath his with a faint, muffled noise of surprise.

“Hey,” Steve says with a smirk when they pull apart.

A slow, slightly dazed smile turns up the corners of his mouth as he replies, “Hey. What was that for?”

Grinning, Steve shrugs one shoulder and resettles himself in his chair. “It was that or sit on you, and for now at least the less drastic option seemed like the better choice.” He reaches out to tap the forefinger of his left hand across Tony’s wrist. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you, or am I going to have to keep doing that in order to get you to relax?”

Mid-inhale when Steve speaks, Tony’s surprised laugh turns into a cough, and Steve wordlessly holds out his water glass.

“Shut up,” he says after a moment, and Steve chuckles.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Written all over your face, Captain Virtue,” Tony grumbles good-naturedly, but the stiff anxiety eases from his posture and mannerisms nonetheless, and he leans back in his chair. “If that’s your idea of a threat, you seriously need to brush up on your menacing skills—the villains are never going to surrender to you with that strategy.”

“You’re the only one I’m planning to use that on,” Steve says, and he can feel the sappy grin he can’t quite stop as he speaks. But he lays his hand atop Tony’s, sobering and giving him a look more concerned than stern, and Tony sighs.

“This is…” He shakes his head, spreads his free hand to gesture at the space around them. “It’s so fucking… _perfect_.”

Steve quirks one eyebrow at him. “And that’s…bad.”

“No,” Tony replies hastily. “I mean, yes. I mean—” He shifts his fingers like he’s about to start drumming them against the tabletop again, except the weight of Steve’s hand aborts the motion before it can begin. “This is perfect—actually, literally, dictionary-definition perfect, and I feel like at any moment something’s going to blow up or fall out of the sky, or another government agency is going to turn out to be a nest of Aryan nation or radical whatever terrorists or something. It’s—”

“Quiet,” Steve finishes for him.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees. “And we don’t really get quiet, not in this job.” He blows out a breath forceful enough to tease at the hair just brushing over his forehead. “I think we can agree I’m definitely the crazy one in this relationship.”

Lips curling upward, Steve turns his hand palm-up, sliding it beneath Tony’s to twine their fingers together. “Don’t bet on that, Stark,” he replies blithely. “I did once volunteer to be pelted with radiation that should have killed me just so I might have a chance to go beat the crap out of Hitler.”

Tony snorts, though his gaze turns toward their joined hands, eyes filled with a near-tangible fondness Steve feels like a caress. “No comment.”

“If I promise no disaster’s going to strike until we at least get to dessert, will you believe me?”

The look Tony gives him in answer is long and searching. While his reply of, “You promise?” is clearly intended to be lighthearted teasing, there’s an underlying plaintive note to his voice that makes Steve wish he could rewrite the past.

Aloud, he just says, “Cross my heart, etc., etc.,” lifting their hands to kiss the back of Tony’s, “and you know I always keep my promises.”

“Fucking Boy Scout,” Tony says, the words belied by the faint hint of redness rising in his cheeks beneath his tan. This time it’s his turn to lean forward, kissing Steve across the table. It’s gentle, almost sweet, his lips soft against Steve’s and redolent of wine and spices.

“You know you love me for it,” Steve answers lightly, hearing the affection that seeps into his own voice, and squeezes Tony’s hand before he sits back and picks his fork up again.

Laughing, sharp and startled, Tony does the same. “Yeah,” he agrees, as he had before they’d left the Tower, eyes bright and expression tender, “I do, god help me. Or you, rather.”

“Stop,” Steve replies, kicking him lightly under the table. “I have no complaints.”

“So you say now,” Tony counters. “Wait a week and check again.”

Steve snorts indelicately. “As Nat so very kindly pointed out to me yesterday after we got back, we have, and I quote, ‘been a couple since fucking New Year’s and were the only ones who didn’t know’. So if something on the order of six months hasn’t changed my mind, I don’t think another seven days is what’s gonna push me over the edge.”

Tony opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it again before speaking, shaking his head and smiling. Objectively, Steve knows without needing to hear it that part of Tony is still convinced that this is mere naïveté on Steve's part, that this is not going to last. But he says none of that, and while Steve is still hell-bent on convincing him otherwise, he’s content to let it go for now if Tony is.

“That’s it,” Tony declares at last, mock consternation furrowing his brow, “you are officially insane.”

“If this is the outcome, I’ll take it,” Steve replies easily, corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement.

Tony throws his hands up in exasperation. “If you are not knighted, or given sainthood, or something, the system means nothing.”

“You’re biased,” Steve protests, but he can feel the heat creeping up from his collarbones to his cheeks.

“You’re already Captain America,” Tony points out like the logic is obvious. “It’s not exactly a quantum leap.”

“Hey,” Steve says softly, turning suddenly serious as he catches Tony’s hand in his again, “don’t do that.” He’s still smiling, but with a determined edge that wasn’t present before as he squeezes Tony’s hand, set on making him _believe_. “Don’t make it like I pulled the short straw here. I love being with you—it’s been the best part of waking up.”

They’re sitting close enough that he can’t miss the catch of Tony’s breath, like the hitch of a needle on a record player, or the startled, discomfited silence that follows. He refuses to be the one to look away first, refuses to give the ghosts in Tony’s mind the slightest bit of extra ammunition. When the other man just squeezes his hand in return instead of trying to change the subject, he considers it a victory. So he lets his smile widen, and when Tony clears his throat and releases their hands, Steve lets him go without protest.

“Okay,” Tony says with a nod, picking his fork up as he does. “Thought about what you want for dessert?”

It’s as much an avoidance tactic as it is a genuine question—Steve’s not an idiot, and he’s had months to figure out how to read this infuriating man’s evasions—but he pretends not to notice and counts the lack of protest as progress of its own. The remainder of the dinner passes more easily, bereft of the doubt and tension that sometimes seem to hold permanent residence beneath Tony’s skin. It’s maybe a half-conscious decision to keep touching Tony, knees pressed together under the table, hands brushing as they talk, interspersed with shy, fleeting kisses that taste like wine and spice and safety.

By the time they’re done, tab paid, standing in front of the restaurant and back in the chaos of the city, it feels like waking from a dream. Steve has that full-body lassitude that comes from a good meal, and he’d be surprised if Tony weren’t at least pleasantly buzzed from the amount of wine they’d consumed. This far from central Manhattan, especially as the sun is setting, the area is less thoroughly inundated with tourists, and Tony takes full advantage of the anonymity to slip his hand into Steve’s.

They head back through Brooklyn much the same way they’d come, talking about nothing in particular and watching the interplay of shadows on the streets as the sun sets, glimpses flitting between buildings while they walk. They don’t make for the subway this time until High Street, just before the Brooklyn Bridge. This late on a Tuesday evening, they aren’t left with a standing-room-only car and can sort of hover in a corner with barely anyone looking their way.

Tony doesn’t seem to be paying much heed to the stops until they get out further uptown than normal, at the stop for the American Museum of Natural History. As they hit the sidewalk, he raises an eyebrow at Steve.

“I thought the serum killed your ability to get drunk,” he teases, leaning into Steve’s side, “or is that old age catching up with you and you forgot where we live?”

“Smartass,” Steve grumbles.

“Last I checked you had no complaints whatsoever about my ass,” Tony replies smugly, and Steve swats halfheartedly at his arm.

“No comment,” he says. “I, uh—well, I thought maybe we could walk back from here?” he offers eventually. In the few moments of silence that follow, he begins to think maybe this was a dumb idea. “Sorry,” he tries to say, free hand coming up to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck, but Tony shakes his head.

“No, no, it’s—that sounds kind of perfect,” Tony admits. “Just…you do know how huge Central Park is, right? Or have you only gone around it at breakneck supersoldier speed?”

“Why do you think we got out here and not at 110th?” Steve replies, ignoring the last question. They have an entire gym in-house, he absolutely does _not_ feel the need to run laps on the six-mile loop around the edge of the park, thank you kindly. “Besides, I was thinking we could walk through it instead.”

“Central Park. At night.” The engineer says it the way they would have said, “Aliens. In Manhattan,” about two years ago, which is to say in a voice infused with no small amount of disbelief. Now that he’s not rejecting the idea outright, though, Steve just shrugs, and Tony feigns a theatrical groan. “Yeah, okay, Central Park at night, sounds like an awesome plan. It’ll make it easy for the billion criminals out for our blood, and I’m sure it’ll be a very romantic mugging. They’ll probably even send you a thank you card when they’re done burying your corpse beneath a bush or something.”

In spite of himself, Steve can’t help laughing. “I’ll protect you,” he declares gallantly when Tony stops ranting, pulling him close enough to drape an arm around his shoulders.

“Billions of criminals,” Tony repeats, but the grin splitting his face effectively destroys any attempt at sincere protest. Rather than respond, Steve just pulls him closer. The look Tony turns his way in response is enough to almost knock the wind from him, infused with a love and trust for which he suddenly feels remarkably inadequate.

“Fine,” Tony says at last, “but when we end our date by fighting villains, it’ll all be on you.”

“Says the man who can talk literally anyone into anything,” Steve retorts.

“Semantics,” Tony replies with a grin.

\----------

“Come up?” Tony asks when they’re waiting for the elevator, and he doesn’t miss the flash of pleased, almost shy surprise in Steve’s eyes.

Because until now, that question—from either of them—has been laden with too much uncertainty, too many nebulous boundaries, with a subsequent moment spent braced for rejection, and breathless relief when the answer was “yes”. Tonight, though, he’s mostly asking to be polite: ever since they got back from Geneva, Steve’s all but moved into the penthouse (it’s only been a day, sure, but it’s the principle of the thing). While practicality will dictate the necessity of sleeping apart eventually, that time is not now. For once, this is as much about crowding into each other’s space on the sofa over a movie as it is about taking each other to bed.

“Of course,” Steve replies.

He still has an arm around Tony’s shoulders, and he leans in to press his lips against Tony’s cheek, soft and easy and chaste and perfect. In the back of Tony’s mind, he thinks this is too easy, that at any moment the other shoe will drop, or the clock will strike midnight and turn him into a pumpkin. But this is one of the rare occasions when that niggling sense of doubt is firmly overwritten by sheer happiness, and Tony just leans into Steve a little bit further.

“I think _Casino Royale_ is on tv somewhere tonight,” he says as they cross into the living room, lights fading up in front of them, “or we could pick up where we left off with _Leverage_. You want a drink or anything?”

“Water?” Steve asks with a shrug, toeing off his shoes. “And picking up where we left off sounds good—arguing the strategic accuracy of their heists would probably be a weird way to end a date for normal people, but I don’t think we count.”

Tony grins at him over his shoulder as JARVIS automatically turns on the television, cueing up the episode they’d started before they left for Geneva. “No, we don’t,” he agrees, “and I still contend that you _can_ totally kill someone with an appetizer—ask Nat; out of all of us, she probably _has_.”

Laughing, Steve catches the water bottle Tony underhands at him as he walks back to the sofa, setting his own on the glass-topped coffee table. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve blink in surprise, probably expecting him to have opted for liquor; he’s strangely gratified when that turns out to be the extent of said surprise—no questions, no shock, just a moment to process before they move on. It makes him love Steve more.

JARVIS dims the lights back down as the episode begins, casting the room into shadows with the dim glow from the city providing most of the ambient lighting through the vast bank of windows. Shifting so his back is up against the armrest, he squashes one of Pepper’s indecently plush cushions behind his neck and swings his legs up onto the sofa, stretching out. Steve does the same beside him, sandwiching himself between the back of the couch and Tony’s body.

Somewhere between then and forty minutes of mutual yelling “it doesn’t work that way!” at the television, Steve ends up more on top of him than beside him. It should probably feel a little ridiculous, grown men making out like teenagers with parents on holiday. Instead, it’s almost novel: there’s no rush, none of the neurotransmitter highs they’ve been at the mercy of the other times they wound up in bed together. It’s as languid and easy as if they have all the time in the world, and the television dissipates into background noise as they read each other’s bodies with their hands, their mouths, relearning one another like redrawn maps. Steve slips his hand under Tony’s shirt, tracing across his torso, and Tony makes a pleased hum in response.

Then Steve’s hand is moving over the arc reactor, and Tony freezes. He tries to shove Steve away and fails, limbs suddenly too heavy and clumsily useless, while a litany of “nononononononoSTOP” screeches in his head and bubbles up to get trapped in his throat.

 _Hands holding him underwater until_ —

 _Blinding, searing, unrelenting pain that_ —

 _His brain ordering his body to move, except nothing happens, and oh god_ —

 _“I can’t believe it was you all along,” and_ —

 _One more step, he can see it now, just one_ —

He can’t breathe, can’t think, can barely _see_ in the dim lighting that had seemed like the perfect atmosphere a moment ago. His hands won’t stop shaking and his heartbeat won’t regulate and the only cohesive thought in his brain is “oh god not again”.

Slowly—too slowly—he fights it down, drawing in one unsteady breath, and then another. Steve has somehow gotten to his other side, kneeling on the thick rug beside the couch and very deliberately not touching him. “I’m sorry,” he keeps saying, tone soothing, reassuring, interspersed with reminders: “Breathe,” and, “You’re at the Tower,” and, “It’s 2015, you’re safe.”

Still incapable of coherent speech, Tony just shakes his head, reaching blindly for one of Steve’s hands and hoping the gesture will convey “it’s not your fault” as much as “please don’t leave” until he can recall how words work. Steve’s fingers curl around his, warm and grounding and solid, and he tries to focus his attention _there_ , to that one spot and that one sensation. This, he repeats vehemently to himself, isn’t Afghanistan, and this isn’t Malibu and those people are all dead and damn everything to hell this was supposed to be over. Then, without letting go, Steve’s pressing the water bottle into his other hand, except Tony’s still shaking so badly he almost upends the entire thing. Finally, Steve wraps his free hand around Tony’s and the bottle, holding it steady so he can drink.

“I’m sorry,” he finally rasps out, and Steve sets the bottle back on the table, shaking his head.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replies, squeezing the hand Tony’s still holding. “I’m the one who should be sorry, I didn’t think—”

Tony draws his other hand down his face, like he’s trying to wipe away cobwebs. “There’s no reason you should have,” he says, a little steadier this time. “I just—I don’t know, it’s been fine until just now, but—” He stops, because even he’s not sure why the hell that just happened, especially not when Steve’s done it before without triggering a panic attack. “I get…weird about the reactor sometimes,” he finishes lamely, but Steve shakes his head again.

“I know, it’s okay, I’m sorry,” he repeats.

Tony opens his mouth to say, “It’s not your fault” when Steve’s words register through the fog of his brain. He frowns, looking a little more closely at Steve. “What do you mean, you know?”

Steve hesitates, and that sense of dread in the pit of Tony’s stomach opens up like a yawning black maw ready to swallow him whole.

“That’s—you’re—it’s Stane, taking it from you, right?” his partner says slowly.

Tony blinks at him in stupefied silence, because he doesn’t remember telling that story, and he knows that particular detail didn’t make the dossier SHIELD gave Steve after he woke up. He knows, because that particular detail isn’t in _anyone’s_ dossier—Rhodey probably guessed what happened after finding him in the workshop, but he had never asked and Tony had never volunteered confirmation. He had only alluded to it with Pepper, but he and Stane are the only two people who know how that night progressed, and one of them isn’t breathing anymore. He’s not even certain Fury knows.

Then it dawns on him. “JARVIS.” It’s a statement, not a question, and Steve nods, a touch reluctantly.

“Yes. I wasn’t trying to pry, neither of us were.” He won’t quite meet Tony’s gaze. “I’m sorry—we were stuck in that weird holding pattern, and I just thought you didn’t trust me, even though you trusted me just fine in the field, and…” Trailing off, he sighs. “The problem with the future: when you talk to the walls, they talk back.”

“The night you broke the tablet.” Again, statement and not question, dots suddenly connecting. Again, Steve nods.

Tony should probably be angry; he knows that. He should be raging and infuriated and throwing Steve out the door and dismantling JARVIS into components for PCs. But he’s none of those things. Instead, there’s just relief. Relief that he doesn’t have to explain what that night in Malibu was like (he doesn’t know what Steve saw, but clearly it was enough to convey the main points), relief that he doesn’t have to talk about that terrifying, paralyzing fear about _anyone_ touching the reactor that had lasted for years and has yet to entirely cease haunting him.

“Oh,” he says blankly, and he meant to be a little less vague, really.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says yet again, pushing himself slowly to his feet. There’s resignation and regret on his face, blue eyes duller now than they had been just minutes before, defeat and something that might be self-recrimination written in the lines of his whole body. “I’ll just go and—”

“No,” Tony interrupts, because if Steve walks out that door it’s going to be for all the wrong reasons. He doesn’t know if they’d be able to come back from that, but he does know that regardless of whether they could or no, he doesn’t want it to happen tonight of all nights. He doubts Steve does, either. “Stay. It’s—I get it.”

Steve still hesitates, but in the end he does sit back down, even if he’s careful to maintain his distance. There at least three feet between them, and Tony isn’t sure if he should feel bad about putting that there, or grateful for the space. For long minutes, they sit in silence, Tony’s breath too loud and too fast in his ears; if Steve notices, he doesn’t so much as blink.

“It’s been… _months_ since this happened,” Tony finally says quietly, staring down at his hands. If he looks at Steve, he’ll probably lose his nerve. “I think I’m past it, that it’s better, and then there’s _something_ and I’m waking up feeling like I’m having a heart attack all over again. Perils of having your heart held together by metal scraps and wire, I suppose.” He attempts to smile, but even he can feel the bitter, unnatural twist to his lips that comes instead.

Still Steve says nothing, but he reaches slowly across the space between them to take Tony’s hand again. His fingers are warm and strong as he offers an encouraging squeeze that’s far more comforting than it has any right to be.

“PTSD is not as fun as the movies would like you to believe,” Tony says, and Steve just snorts.

“I don’t know what movies you’ve been watching, but you need a new directory,” Steve replies. When Tony looks over at him, he just smiles, an expression tinged with sadness, shadows tracing up into his eyes. It’s an expression that has no place on Captain America’s face, never mind Steve Rogers’.

“I guess I found all the crappy ones.” Tony swallows against the lump he can’t quite get out of his throat, then makes himself say, “It’s not over—maybe it never will be. I—the panic, the nightmares, I don’t know if they’re ever going to stop.”

It’s too much candor, the kind of truth he makes a point of never examining in the harsh light of day. But this is the first time since he and Pepper broke up that he’s really, genuinely _cared_ about the person he’s with. Hell, he’s only had a couple of partners in the time since, and those were casual and empty and eventually he just stopped trying. But this? He feels like he needs to give Steve the warning, let him know what he’s getting into in case it turns out to be the deal breaker. Because if it is, it’ll hurt now, but it’ll be nothing compared to what it’ll feel like if he says nothing and they run headfirst into it later.

Steve doesn’t answer. In the emptiness that follows, something heavy burrows into Tony’s gut, cold and disconcerting as lead, as the fucking car battery he’d had to carry around with him like the world’s worst accessory. But as he’s about to pull away, to swallow down the disappointment and try to walk away with some of his dignity still intact, Steve breaks the silence.

“I dream of the ice, still,” he says.

Tony swings his head around sharply to look at him. Of all the things he’d expected—“I can’t do this,” or “for the love of god get over it already,” or “I have better things to do with my time”—that wasn’t one of the possibilities he’d considered.

“When the plane went down,” Steve continues, “it wasn’t actually the impact that hurt, or even the drowning. Not really. They sucked, but it’s the cold that gets me; it felt like a thousand needles tearing my chest open, and I’ve been awake for three years and I still wake up thinking I’m back in the _Valkyrie_ waiting to die, wishing it would come quicker and helpless to do anything about it.” He laughs, raw and broken and filled with a level of commiseration Tony wishes he could shoulder for him. One of them, at least, should be free of it. “The first time I forgot to check the temperature and took a cold shower, the panic attack was so bad I thought I’d pass out, and for the first couple months I’d wake up with cracked teeth from how hard I was gritting them.” He offers Tony a crooked smile. “Thank god for the serum or I’d be there with the rest of the people my age trying to get dentures that fit.”

Tony gapes at him, at a loss for words. The strangled-cat sound that escapes from the back of his throat unbidden earns him an actual smile instead of the anger he’d expect from most people. With a sigh, Steve looks down at their still-joined hands, tracing his thumb across Tony’s skin.

“My point is, you’re not the only one with ghosts. You don’t owe me apologies or warnings; I get it.”

Following Steve’s gaze, Tony stares at the spaces where Steve’s fingers fold against his like the edges of a zipper, trying to commit the image to memory. “I wish it were easier,” he says after a moment. He doesn’t know whether he means the shrapnel embedded in his chest or the nightmares or _life_ , but Steve nods anyway and doesn’t relinquish his hold. “But this,” he adds, tugging the other man closer, “this is easy enough, right?” Not until Steve moves toward him without protest does he feel the tension drain from his body, the tightness ease from his chest.

“I think we deserve at least that much,” Steve answers, and when Tony leans in to kiss him, it’s just that: easy.

“God yes,” Tony breathes into the space between their lips.

 _This doesn’t get to win, not tonight_ , he thinks, and closes the distance between them, crawling into Steve’s lap. The air compresses out of the leather cushions with a gentle hiss as Steve’s arms come around him automatically, instinctive as breathing. He curls into the lines of Steve’s body, shaping himself against them with his head tucked under Steve’s chin, and tries to find the peace from earlier that evening that’s since made itself scarce.

“I want a redo on this date,” he mutters at last.

Steve simply presses a kiss against his hairline and shrugs, a movement Tony feels in the friction of shifting fabric. “Anytime,” Steve replies, voice a low rumble in his chest. “I’d go on a date with you every day.”

“Even when they crash and burn?” Tony counters, but he’s glad Steve can’t see his expression. He must look like a smitten teenager, grinning so hard his face hurts despite the turn the night had taken, and he has a reputation to uphold.

“I don’t mind. Keeps the relationship fresh.”

Tony barks out a laugh, shaking his head. “Never gonna be a boring couple, are we?”

“God forbid,” Steve says with a low laugh that’s little more than a breathless exhale.

Pressing his lips to Steve’s skin, right where shoulder meets neck, Tony pulls back to look at him. He doesn’t get far, since Steve catches his mouth in a kiss. “Bedroom?” Tony asks against his lips, and he feels Steve go taut beneath him. He’d have missed it if they weren’t in such close proximity, but he rolls his eyes fondly and kisses Steve again before putting enough distance between them to look him square in the eye. “It’s okay— _I’m_ okay.”

Still Steve hesitates, arms tightening around Tony in a way that can only be described as protective. Rather than feeling suffocating, or even patronizing, it instead sends something warm and fond bubbling up in Tony’s chest.

Wiggling his eyebrows, deliberately trying to lighten the mood, he concedes, “How about some cuddling?”

Slowly, Steve agrees, “I like cuddling,” attention clearly more on Tony’s face than his own words, searching for an iota of the earlier panic. Tony holds his gaze steadily, letting him look, and after a beat the corners of Steve’s mouth curl in a tiny, pleased smile.

“Good,” Tony says decisively. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll even let you be the little spoon.”

“It’s the best spot and you know it,” Steve replies, grinning.

He’s still watching Tony like a hawk, but the uncertainty has vanished by the time he leans in for another kiss. This one is drawn-out in a way that seems to last forever, leaving Tony melting in his arms. But just as he lets himself sink into the feeling, Steve moves. Abruptly, Tony finds himself clinging to Steve for dear life and biting back a noise of protest that is definitely _not_ a squeak no matter what Steve says.

“What, not used to the height?” Steve asks, all feigned innocence.

“Really?” Tony shoots back. “ _Now_ , with the short jokes, really?”

He nips at Steve’s nose, for lack of a better target, but anything else he might have had to say is cut off by another kiss. It occurs to him, vaguely, in the back of his mind, that he should really protest this new tactic where Steve kisses him to shut him up, but at the moment he’s enjoying it too much to want to expend the effort. Tightening his thighs around Steve’s unfairly slender waist, he digs his fingers unconsciously into Steve’s biceps in an attempt to maintain his balance. It’s more habit than necessity, since the risk of falling is practically nil—not when Steve seems to find holding Tony up as uncomplicated as holding his shield. Tony would be insulted if he could be bothered to summon the energy.

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” Tony says with a dramatic sigh, waving a hand imperiously over Steve’s head. “Then move your ass, supersoldier. Chop-chop, the night is young and my bed is feeling abandoned.”

Steve’s smile is the sort that Tony would start a war to defend, bright and warm, reaching all the way up to his eyes. In its wake, Tony’s body thrums with something undefinable, more encompassing—just _more_ —than sheer happiness. But all Steve says is, “Well, we can’t have _that_.”

 

**iv. between the shades, assassination’s standing still**

_22 June 2015_ ; _airspace over Newark, New Jersey_

On a Thursday night, the team is on its way back from Missouri, because apparently that’s the destination of choice these days if you’re in the mood for giant, demonic goat-things that spit acid. In other words, another day that ends in y. Or so they thought, until Maria pops up on the display as they’re about to cross into New York airspace.

“Guys, make a stop in Hell’s Kitchen, would you?”

There’s a collective pause in the jet.

“…Did you just say ‘Hell’s Kitchen’?” Clint asks, shooting her a look that says fairly eloquently, “is this code for ‘I am being held hostage’?”

“I did,” she replies patiently, evidently ignoring the subtext. “Not entirely sure what’s going on, just that there’s some sort of confrontation on a rooftop. Several—at least three—Enhanced, and starting to draw some attention.”

“You know, we did just save the agricultural output for like an entire state,” Tony says, mostly to the bulkhead, as Maria cuts the connection and relays the coordinates.

“I’ll put us down in that spot over by Central—you know the one,” Clint says.

“Sam and Rhodey and I’ll try and get a bead on…whatever the fuck this is,” Tony replies, “and the rest of you will either not have to do anything, or you’ll all run so damn fast it won’t matter.”

The three of them dive out of the rear hatch as Clint cracks it open, and the Quinjet hasn’t even set down before Tony’s voice comes over the comms: “We’ve got them.” Then he pauses. “Or we’ve got something, anyway. There’s about ten of them on a rooftop—six blocks south of your position, two blocks west, can’t miss it—but god help me if I can tell you which side we’re supposed to be assisting.”

“Hold off, Iron Man, we’ll be there in three. Maybe less. Do _not_ do something stupid,” Steve says in a tone that suggests he knows the order is basically fruitless.

“Who, me?” Tony asks rhetorically, his voice the picture of innocence. “Hey!” he shouts, swapping over to the broadcast channel, loud enough to get the attention of whatever motley crew is currently occupying the rooftop. “Would you like to haul ass, or would you like to have them handed to you?”

He gets gunfire—poorly-aimed gunfire, at that—in response.

“Typical,” he says with a snort as the three of them roll smoothly out of the way.

Sam chokes back a laugh and offers, “I’ll go left.”

Tony grins, and Rhodey gestures off to the right while Tony heads in low, aiming first for the genius with the itchy trigger finger. “I really, really hate it when people shoot at me,” he says conversationally, punching the thug in the face and disarming him. If he “accidentally” breaks that trigger finger in the process, well. The perp would be the only one complaining.

“Your six o’clock,” Clint tells him via the comms, and Tony spins to face the one wielding what looks like a laser gun on steroids.

Come to think of it, the guy looks like he’s on steroids, too. But then Steve all but appears out of thin air at a perfect forty-five degree angle to Tony, whose repulsor beam refracts off the shield to render the weapon useless, so the point is moot.

“Widow, west roof!”

“I see him.”

Clint fires, aiming for the cluster that hasn’t managed to break apart. That’s when shit gets weird.

Well, weirder: the stranger in head-to-toe black that is decidedly _not_ standard bank robber ski mask couture snatches the arrow out of the air before it can go through his shoulder. “Them!” he bellows indignantly. “Shoot _them_!! I’m on _your_ side!!”

Then he jams the arrow downward into the assailant who’d just tried to eviscerate him, embedding the arrowhead just behind the collarbone. It’s nowhere near fatal, but it’ll hurt like a bitch.

Which, okay. That’s new.

The rest of the fight barely qualifies as one, and finally the team congregates on the same rooftop, loosely surrounding the man who’d caught Clint’s arrow. They aren’t locking him in, precisely, but they’re not letting their guard down, either. He’s a touch shorter than Tony, with a slight build, but that means exactly nothing when it comes to threat assessment, not now that biology is unpredictable—and catching that arrow heavily skews his odds toward Enhanced rather than not.

“You know who we are.” It’s not a question, and Steve shifts his shield to his left hand, letting it hang loosely in his grip as he pushes his cowl back with the other.

“Yeah,” the stranger replies, disinterested. His stance is as guarded as theirs, deceptively relaxed if they weren’t trained to notice the balance of his weight on the balls of his feet, the loose roll of his shoulders. “I‘ve been _alive_ the last four years.”

“Great!” Tony says cheerfully, flipping up the faceplate of his helmet. “So who the hell are you?”

“Oh god,” Clint interjects suddenly, horrified amazement dawning on his face. “You’re that guy—the devil of Hell’s Kitchen or whatever.”

“Is there any way you could possibly make that sound _more_ appalling?”

“Yes,” Clint replies, just as Sam warns, “Don’t ask.”

“You should come with us.”

“And if I say no?”

Steve shrugs like it really couldn’t matter less. “Well, you look like you could use a doctor, or maybe an operating theater, so I’d guess ‘pass out’ would be next on your agenda.”

“I’m fine,” he replies flatly, because none of them have heard that before. Or said that before.

Clint just snorts, raising an eyebrow as he shoots the newcomer an incredulous look. “Oh, I believe you, Kitchen Satan. I’m sure all the blood on your shirt is only the five percent you didn’t need.”

They can’t see the stranger’s eyes behind the mask, but his exasperated eye roll is readily apparent anyway. It’s actually kind of impressive.

“How about a compromise?” Steve offers finally. “Our jet’s a few blocks away, with a trauma kit and the team’s unofficial doctor. Let us at least patch you up.”

“And why on earth would you do that?”

“Because we’re the Avengers,” Tony says, shooting the guy a grin as though it’s a perfectly sufficient explanation.

Conveniently, it also gives them more time for an assessment. Something in his behavior and the way he carries himself doesn’t quite track with the persona he’s adopted, but then again, nothing in this day has tracked with what it’s supposed to. But he doesn’t need to know that.

“We kind of try to stand up for our own,” Steve adds, which doesn’t really help.

Clint grins broadly at him. “Annoying habit to break.”

For a long few moments, the other man doesn’t move. At last he sighs, visibly deflating as he pushes himself into motion. “No cops,” he replies, heading for the fire escape, and it’s hard to tell who starts it, but half the team is laughing as the other half does their level best to keep a straight face. “What?”

“Dude,” Tony says, “you’ve got three guys standing right here who can fly, and you look like you’re not gonna make it down one flight, never mind six. Would you pull your head outta your ass before you fall over?”

“Look who’s talking,” Rhodey says, laugh redirected now, and this time Tony’s the one rolling his eyes.

“What, you’ve never seen a hypocrite before?”

The guy begrudgingly makes his way back to them, then suddenly stops, looking at them like he’s calculating something. “You’re short two,” he almost accuses. “Don’t tell me your unofficial doctor’s actually the—”

“Hulk?” Sam finishes for him. “Since the demigod currently trapped in a debrief is any number of things except doctor, yes. Though when he’s not giant and green and angry he prefers Bruce, and he’s the most mild-mannered person you will ever meet.”

He mutters something that bears a striking resemblance to, “I doubt it.” But when Tony grabs him carefully around the waist, he just sighs and shakes his head like he’s resigned himself to his fate.

“Hey, Banner, got a patient for you,” Tony informs him over the comms as they make their approach, Sam and Rhodey behind them with the rest of team only a few rooftops back.

As the rear hatch lowers, Bruce pokes his head out. “Which one of you idiots went and—oh.” He blinks. “You’re new.”

“You’re perceptive.”

Bruce snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah, you’ll fit in just fine.”

“He’s a bundle of joy, of course he will,” Tony says, ignoring the glare he receives in answer from the man in question. “We promised him a quick patch job and a boot to the ass, so it’s time for you to work your magic, Bruce.”

Sighing, Bruce leads the stranger to the makeshift examination table, hands hovering near his elbow without making contact. “Just once, I’d love it if you guys could at least _pretend_ to be model patients.”

“Wishful thinking, doc,” Rhodey chimes in as he steps inside, Clint perched on his shoulders and grinning like the lucky kid who got the ride of a lifetime. Sam lands a few feet behind them, closely followed by Natasha and Steve, who share a look that reminds everyone of nothing so much as amused, thoroughly resigned parents.

“I live in hope,” Bruce replies dryly, rifling through the contents of a shelf.

Given the number of obnoxiously painful but non-lethal injuries the team seems to incur, the Quinjet is stocked with medical supplies for nearly everything shy of brain surgery. JARVIS is already running a quick baseline scan, and the newcomer is eerily still, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, more likely, for the Hulk to make a surprise appearance.

“So, what should we call you?” Steve asks, stepping closer to the table. When the guy’s shoulders tense, Steve stops, offering what he hopes is a reassuring smile. The stranger’s jaw works as though he’s physically chewing on his words.

“Newspapers call me Daredevil,” he replies at last. It isn’t really an answer, but it makes as much sense as the rest of the day, so who’s counting. His voice has gotten lower, rougher, as the adrenaline wears off and the exhaustion begins encroaching on his stoicism.

Rhodey snorts, and Tony shoots him a long, unimpressed look. “Really, _Iron Patriot_?” he asks pointedly. “You wanna go there?”

“I will if you will, _Iron_ Man,” Rhodey retorts. “At least mine fits the bill, unlike your gold-titanium alloy ass.”

Tony opens his mouth to counter, but Steve promptly cuts him off. “Good to meet you, Daredevil,” he interjects as though it’s not a frankly bizarre thing to say. In fairness, it isn't as though they haven't said worse, so what the hell. “Nice to know we’re not the only crazy people running around in suits trying to save the day.”

“He means that clinically, but I’d like to point out I got a clean bill of mental health from the SHIELD docs. Just putting that out there,” Clint says with a wave of his hand.

With a pensive tilt of his head, the guy says, “Wasn’t SHIELD actually an undercover Nazi organization? I think their standards might have been a little skewed.”

Natasha laughs, a short, sharp sound that somehow manages to avoid mockery. “I like you,” she declares, just as Clint clarifies, “Not technically Nazis.”

“Thanks,” Daredevil replies, deliberately ignoring Clint, then pauses. “I think.”

“How’re we doing, doc?” Tony asks before either of them can respond, coming up to peer over Bruce’s shoulder at the StarkPad in his hands.

“Bruised fifth, sixth, and seventh right ribs; fractured third and fourth left ribs; no internal bleeding; no other broken bones, miraculously; and a cut that needs sutures on your thigh. Plus some significant blood loss, but I think you already knew about that one.”

“So by our standards, you’re perfectly fine.”

“I think we need new standards,” Sam says wryly, leaning back against a wall with a low thump.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Natasha replies with a grin.

“You’re all insane,” Daredevil informs them. To his credit, he sounds less horrified and more idly curious, like someone who’s stumbled through the looking glass and isn't yet convinced they aren't dreaming. Or hallucinating.

“You’ll get used to them,” Steve says.

Crossing his arms across his chest, Sam mutters, “Says the leader of the unbalanced Power Rangers.”

“ _Some people_ would tell you it’s perfectly acceptable to leave like this,” Bruce interrupts with a pointed look at Tony, “but I strongly recommend you let me clean and suture that cut, and give you some painkillers for whenever the endorphins wear off.”

Daredevil casts an assessing glance around the jet, then nods, and Bruce moves to prep his supplies before going to work on the wound. Now that the stranger no longer seems to be an imminent flight risk or threat, the rest of the team takes a collective breath, most of them easing out of guarded wariness into less heightened watchfulness. To the untrained eye, they even look passably casual.

Clint, however, remains closer to Daredevil, out of his direct line of sight but zeroed in on him like a target. Near the cockpit, Tony’s divested himself of his armor and is doing a masterful job feigning absorption in a status check while most of his focus stays with Clint and the stranger. Natasha, still by the rear hatch and effectively leaving no other option for a violent exit except _up_ , is seemingly occupied with cleaning her weapons.

“You have a question,” Daredevil says after a few minutes of Clint’s hovering, when Bruce is putting in the first suture.

The archer tips his head in a nod, glancing up long enough to catch Nat and Tony’s eyes. Crossing his arms, he leans back against the bulkhead, eyes on Daredevil. “You do realize that your secret’s going to be out sooner or later.”

Beneath the “let’s talk about the weather” tone lies a faint note of warning, as if to say, “don't come into my house and lie to me”, with a touch of “for your own good, don’t be the idiot who underestimates any of us”. It’s just this side of threatening, like the response will decide whether or not the newcomer _merits_ a threat, and everyone else on the jet promptly places the bulk of their attention on the discussion.

“Hasn’t yet,” comes the response. He’s the picture of carelessness, but his right hand flexes against the table.

Clint shakes his head, his voice still casual when he says, “Oh, I don’t mean your name, though at some point I’m sure they’ll figure that out, too. I was talking about your sight.”

The shift is nearly instantaneous, as Daredevil goes so still he may as well not be breathing. It’s as telling a response as, “You’re right,” but aloud he says only, voice tight, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a better liar than that,” Clint tells him with a snort, and begins ticking observations off on his fingers. “Your mask isn’t see-through, much as you’d like everyone to think it is. You move smoothly when you aren’t fighting, but carefully, like you're used to searching out your surroundings—or at least pretending to. And you haven't once looked directly at someone when you’re talking to them; you just tilt your head in their direction.”

In any other context, the entire exchange would be horrifyingly rude. In any other context, none of them—particularly not the three who’d first guessed—would consider calling someone else out on their disability, acknowledged or otherwise. In this one, it’s still rude, but it isn’t unjustified: life as an operative of any sort relies heavily on deception, and while you might spend just as much time deceiving colleagues or telling half-truths because they’re collateral targets, the rare occasions on which you _are_ able to grant truth should be met with the same, if only out of professional courtesy. They aren’t on assignment; they haven’t been and aren’t trying to kill each other after that initial confusion of who the hell was fighting whom; and they haven’t made any overt threats—he’s every bit as cautious as they are. And while he might not be an operative in the traditional sense, he’s walked into the tangential world and is bound by the same rules as the rest of them, however skewed said rules may now be with super-everythings complicating it all. If he doesn’t know them already, he needs to. Withholding names is so commonplace no one would have cared if he’d declared himself John Smith, but the rest of the blatant lie is an insult that has nothing to do with physical capability.

Finally, after long moments of silence, Clint relents. “Look, you have your reasons, and I don’t care about exposing them to the public. But I’m not the only one who will notice.”

“How _did_ you know?” Daredevil asks at last. His voice is still coiled tight, but there’s grudging respect (whether for the read or because he understands the point of this exchange is unclear) along with a note of curiosity.

Clint’s expression softens a touch, and he taps his right ear. “Cochlear implant,” he explains. “I’ve been partially deaf since I was ten, learned to look for it.”

A beat; then a look of dawning comprehension. “By legal human standards, I’m actually blind. By yours, I’m still blind, but it’s…” He shrugs one shoulder. “Something between radar and echolocation—I _felt_ the arrow, the movement of the air, the displacement of sound, et cetera.”

Clint holds his gaze for a long moment, then nods easily. “Cool,” he says, anything remotely resembling confrontation gone from his voice as quickly as it had appeared. When the other man continues to look as though he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, Clint shrugs again. “If I was supposed to be shocked by that, bear in mind I’m on a team with a hammer no one who isn’t the literal god can lift, a real life American legend—”

“And the peak of human engineering!” Tony yells from the cockpit, seamlessly as if he’d never been on alert. He doesn't so much as twitch when Clint flips him off and proceeds like he’d never been interrupted.

“My point is, not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. The issue was the existence of the lie, not the fact of it.”

Daredevil huffs out a low laugh, tone and posture reverting back to the relative ease he’d had after he sat down. “You may have a point.”

Clint gives him a tiny mock salute. “I do that sometimes.”

The man looks over at him, pausing. Then he says, “You didn’t ask how.”

Clint returns his look, steady and unflinching. “No,” he agrees. “I didn’t.”

A few minutes later, Bruce finishes up, giving his work another once-over before getting to his feet with a pleased smile. “That should hold you, but only if you don’t try any superheroing for at least a week.” When Daredevil just looks roundly skeptical, Bruce sighs and amends, “Okay, four days, at least. Please.”

“I’ll try,” Daredevil concedes and bounces off the exam table, testing his leg before putting his full weight on it.

“You know, I remember a time when I didn’t get this much happiness from a half-assed ‘I’ll try’,” Bruce says wistfully, effectively dispelling any lingering tension there may have been.

“That was a boring time, Bruce,” Tony says as he approaches, laughing at Bruce’s noncommittal hum. To Daredevil he continues, “Where can we drop you? Although I do have a spare floor at the Tower and a penchant for picking up strays, depending on who you ask.”

“Floor?” Daredevil starts to ask, then shakes his head like he doesn’t actually want to know. In all fairness, he probably doesn’t. “Never mind, I’m good to go,” he continues, tracking Natasha as she moves to the co-pilot’s seat beside Sam. “Tempted though I am to see you try to fly into Hell’s Kitchen, I think our buildings would just collapse into dust if you tried to land this on top of one of them.”

“In that case,” Tony says, refocusing Daredevil’s attention back to him, “ever thought of an armor upgrade?”

Another pause. “What?”

Shrugging, Tony aims for professional assessment and instead hits something that bears a closer likeness to unconstrained glee. Daredevil takes a half-aborted, reflexive step backwards, much to Clint’s wholehearted amusement if his peal of laughter is any indication, and Tony waves a hand in Daredevil’s general direction. “I just think you need to fix… _this_ , if you’re going to keep deciding to fight every thug with a bad attitude you happen to come across.”

Cocking his head, Daredevil seems to parse that for a moment, then says slowly, “Did you just point at _all_ of me?”

“Yup,” Tony confirms, looking entirely unapologetic.

Steve shares a long look with Clint, full of fond exasperation. “Tony, stop bullying the new heroes into building tech for them.”

“Who’s bullying?” Tony protests. “I’m only offering because that is clearly subpar next to his skill set.”

“You pointed at all of me again,” Daredevil replies. He shoots a slightly pleading glance at Clint, who simply shrugs.

“I’d say yes,” he advises. “You won’t win this argument, I promise you, and plus you get lots of shiny new toys out of it.”

Another pause, and finally Daredevil says, “I’ll think about it.” It’s enough to earn a grin and a nod from Tony, though Daredevil himself has acquired a doleful expression that suggests he’s regretting every decision that could have conceivably led him to this point. Which is fine, it’s all but a formal rite of passage. Builds character, and all that.

“Excellent,” Tony says, then shoots Daredevil a pensive look. “How do you feel about jet boots? Okay, no jet boots,” he corrects just as quickly, “stop glaring at me, I can feel it.”

“Please don’t blow me up.”

“That only happened one time, and Clint’s _fine_ ,” Tony protests as Steve intercedes.

“He won’t. I promise to keep him in line.”

“I’m going to die,” Daredevil says to the room at large, somewhat undermined by the amused twitch of his lips.

Tony sighs. “Drama queen.”

“Mad scientist,” Daredevil retorts.

“Never said I wasn’t one.”

“That is not remotely comforting.”

Natasha’s smothered laugh is audible even at the back of the plane. “If you wanted comfort, this was the wrong place to find it,” she calls back, and he nods wryly.

“I see your point.”

Turning for the rear hatch as the engines begin to power up, he stops when Bruce waves him off, approaching with painkillers and antibiotics. From the other side, Clint tosses him a state-of-the-art StarkPhone that Daredevil catches in the middle of its arc.

“You ever need any help, use this,” Clint says. “Press zero, wait for JARVIS to patch you through. If any of us are off-duty or otherwise not occupied with homicidal monsters, we’ll be here as fast as this baby can fly.”

“Faster if anyone would let me give them jet boots,” Tony grumbles, then yelps when Rhodey smacks the back of his head.

“Thanks,” Daredevil says, only slightly dubious.

Tossing him a sloppy salute, Rhodey grins back. “No problem, Daredevil.”

At the bottom of the ramp, he hesitates, hand flexing around the new phone as he bites at his lip, thinking. After a moment, he straightens, draws in a deep breath, and offers, “Um, it’s Matt, actually.”

After a beat, he gets some nods; Clint says only, “Pleasure to meet you,” before the hatch closes and the Quinjet departs. Not until he’s back at his apartment and cracking open a beer, about to call Foggy, does Matt realize not a single one of them found his name unexpected.

\----------

 _29 June 2015_ ; _Hell’s Kitchen, New York_

Three hours into reviewing precedent for an eviction case, the StarkPhone—the Avengers phone, as Matt’s taken to calling it in his head—tucked into his desk drawer beeps with a text message. It’s nothing more than an address, a few blocks away from the office, so he makes his excuses to Karen and Foggy for an early lunch. He’s not entirely certain what it is he’s searching for, but he knows it when he finds it: an inconspicuous black metal box, tucked away behind some empty crates, deep in an alley and newer than anything else surrounding it.

There’s no discernible lock, but when he crouches down to pick it up, a crisp British voice asks, “Identification, please.”

Matt thinks no supervillain trying to entrap him would be that polite, and none of the regular villains he knows would be that intelligent, so he says, “Daredevil.” He pauses, then adds, “Matt.”

“Voice print verified. Thank you, sir,” the box says.

It unfolds with a faint hiss and the rich, earthy scent of new, high-quality leather, and the sharp, slightly acrid taste of soldered metal. He feels light, unusually thin kevlar beneath his fingertips as he runs his hands over the exquisite new suit, smiling in spite of the faintly ridiculous delivery. In place of his full-body black, this one is pure Tony Stark red cast a few shades darker, even if the rest of it is surprisingly on point for his own moniker.

“I’ll be damned,” he says to himself, then throws a prayer to the heavens (or maybe just Steve Rogers) that there aren’t any jet boots.

 

**v. sitting in the rubble, I can see the stars**

_26 June 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“You ever been home?” Bucky asks Steve one morning as they walk into the communal kitchen on their way back from the gym.

It’s part of the proposed therapy regimen from the army of shrinks, using exercise to help Bucky acquire some equilibrium or balance himself out or something else appropriately head-shrink-ish. Now that he seems less leery of accidentally snapping and murdering all of them by accident, it even seems to be working. (It probably doesn’t hurt that the Tower’s facilities have a googolplex of failsafes to account for every possible catastrophe, likely courtesy of Tony’s insomnia.)

Steve mulls the question over, dropping onto one of the stools around the island while Bucky takes the spot across from him. At the other end, Natasha’s eating some vaguely oatmeal-looking concoction she probably stole from Bruce, and she slides two bottles of water their way before returning her attention to the StarkPad propped up in front of her.

“To Brooklyn?” Steve asks, and Bucky nods. “A few times since I woke up. Our—the building where we lived, it’s still there, but they built a Gogurt shop at the bottom.” He gives Bucky a wry grin. “Nothing beats 21st century ingenuity.”

Without looking up, Natasha snorts. “Sure it doesn’t, you old geezer.”

Bucky smiles but says nothing, methodically picking away the label on his water bottle, and out of the blue the perfect idea hits Steve. Or so he hopes. He can no longer read Bucky quite the way he once had, but this one occurs to him with striking clarity, sharp enough to embolden him into suggesting, “You want to go?”

Like the tip of a cracking whip, Bucky’s head snaps up. “Brooklyn?” His voice is tinged with excitement, and Steve grins, attempting nonchalance.

“Haven’t been sightseeing in awhile; we could take the day off, walk around New York like we used to. Except now there’s no chance I’ll have an asthma attack on the way.”

“No, just heatstroke, if you’re _walking_ to Brooklyn,” Natasha cuts in drily. By contrast, her expression is warmly approving as she takes another spoonful of oatmeal.

Bucky chews thoughtfully on his lip for a moment, but there’s a contagious, childlike enthusiasm spilling over. “Can we?”

Pragmatically, Steve’s fully cognizant of the fact that half of SHIELD, most of the shrinks, and likely the entire rest of the world would disagree with his answer. He’s also aware that, ever since he’s been back, Bucky hasn’t issued a single request to anyone for himself, taking only what’s offered and no more—the one exception being his arm overriding his not-inconsiderable pain tolerance. Recognizing that particular brand of self-flagellation too well to not sympathize with it, Steve finds himself nodding before his friend’s finished the question.

“Sure, just let me take a quick shower. Meet you in the lobby in twenty?”

The way Bucky’s eyes light up as he all but _beams_ is all the reassurance Steve needed to know he gave the right response.

\----------

Just shy of twenty minutes later, Steve steps out of the elevator on the ground floor to find Bucky already waiting for him by reception, leaning inconspicuously on the marble column closest to the main doors. Like this, with his hair pulled back, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, he looks like an ordinary New Yorker. He also looks like he’d greatly prefer a coat, or at least long sleeves, except it’s Manhattan in July, and no matter how augmented their biology, he’d still drop dead of heatstroke inside of an hour. His arm is less recognizable as “the one on the assassin who tried to kill Captain America” now that he’s using Tony’s redesign, but since he’d declined the flesh-colored silicone sleeve, it’s still distinctly different from commercially available prosthetics. More to the point, _he’s_ still self-conscious about it in public.

“Ready?” Steve asks, and Bucky smiles. A second later, he seems to register Steve’s shirt, which had been pilfered from the Iron Man collection Tony refuses to acknowledge hoarding in the back of a closet. He raises an eyebrow, amused, and Steve huffs. “Shut up, it was the first clean thing I found.”

“Sure it was,” Bucky drawls, a knowing, gleeful look in his blue eyes that suggests this has just become prime blackmail material. “So, where to?”

“Oh, you know me, I came up with a plan and everything,” Steve answers blithely. “Wait here.” He heads over to the receptionist, smiling when she turns to face him. “Hey, Mia. I was wondering, do you by any chance have some of those New York guidebooks lying around?”

“You gonna play tourist today, Steve?” The brunette digs through a desk drawer, coming up victorious a few seconds later with a book and a stack of pamphlets.

“Something like that. But last time I roamed around here freely, Gogurt wasn’t a thing.”

Laughing, she picks up a pen. “Trust me, it’s still not a thing,” she informs him, grinning.

He grins back. “My faith in humanity is restored,” he says, deadpan.

He’d first met Mia a couple months after he’d moved to the Tower, and while he doesn’t see her that often since he, like most of the team, uses the garage or roof more than the lobby, he likes her. She’s a self-professed Captain America fan, but she’s never treated him like the title, just Steve Rogers; for that, he’s incredibly grateful.

She snorts, shaking her head. “You are way too easy,” she replies, mock-warning, then waves at the maps. “Give me just a second and I’ll mark down some of my favorite off-the-beaten-path spots.”

“Played tourist much yourself?”

“Oh, once when I moved here, and a lot after I met my fiancée—she’s an urban explorer type, so we try to use at least one weekend a month for a New York adventure.” She adds a few sticky-note flags to the guidebook and circles a number of places on a map, including a few exclamation points on a couple for emphasis, then hands the whole stack to him. “Here you go. Have fun, and try not to see everything at once,” she adds with a conspiratorial nod at the book, dark eyes dancing with amusement. “We’ve been doing this for a year now, and we _still_ haven’t seen everything. Supersoldier or not, I’m not sure even you could manage that.”

It’s his turn to laugh, tucking the items under his arm. “Do our best. Thanks, Mia.” With a wave, he makes his way back to Bucky, passing over the guidebook and sliding the map and pamphlets into one of his pockets. “What looks good?”

Bucky pages through the book as they head for the doors, stopping now and again every few seconds before saying, “Ever been to the top of the Empire State Building?”

“Nope, but you’re on.”

With a goal now in mind, they stroll through the city, enjoying the unusually accommodating weather—sunny and warm, without enough humidity to outdo a sauna—and complete lack of obligations upon either of them. Though they get their share of double-takes, the recognition seems to stop at friendly nods and hellos; it’s not entirely clear if that’s an unusual attempt to let them be _people_ , or if they don’t approach because they’re afraid of Bucky, but no one pulls weapons or shouts invectives at them, so it’s peaceful. Steve serves as impromptu tour guide, operating roughly half by guidebook and half by the map in his head of the best sidewalk food vendors to whom Tony’s introduced him. They end up running all eight-six flights of stairs to the top of the Empire State Building, for no better reason than because when they walk in, Bucky looks over at Steve and says, “Race you to the top?”, and Steve’s never met a challenge he doesn’t love. Then they head across the plaza and repeat the process with the seventy flights in Rockefeller Center, solely to make fun of the Empire State. At the top, Steve catches Bucky staring out at the horizon with an open, pleased look on his face.

In Central Park, they find themselves incapable of bypassing a cotton candy cart without making a purchase. Steve feeds the ducks, to a bevy of Bucky’s teasing and old man jokes, but gets his unexpected revenge when one of the more adventurous mallards chooses to follow Bucky around, hell bent on kicking his ass.

“I think we may have found your match,” Steve wheezes, trying with marginal success to film the encounter on his phone while doubled over laughing. Bucky just glares and halfheartedly shoos at the advancing bird.

And though Bucky’s memory may be spotty, he’s clear enough to convince Steve to bypass the MOMA; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to rightfully surmise that Steve would get lost in there for a week without so much as trying. In exchange, he drags Steve down some side streets, Mia’s book in hand. They emerge by the theaters and Times Square and a tiny little hole-in-the-wall tourist shop bedecked with every “I Heart NY” object conceivable. Steve buys Tony a keychain Statue of Liberty with an arc reactor, and Bucky obtains the most ridiculous “I <3 The Avengers” baseball cap Steve’s ever seen. His pride in it seems, for all intents and purposes, to be directly proportionate to the amount of Steve’s laughter, for reasons Steve doesn’t even begin to try comprehending.

“Wait, we’re really walking to Brooklyn?” Bucky asks, mildly incredulous, through a mouthful of hot dog. It’s his twelfth of the day, and their third hour, which is evidently how long it had taken him to notice Steve was slowly guiding them in that direction.

“Why not?” Steve replies with a grin, and though his friend heaves a theatrical sigh, he follows with only token protests.

At least until they’re passing the Brooklyn Library, where his willpower evidently goes on holiday without him and he drops unceremoniously onto a random bench, groaning. “I’m starting to miss you being too much of a twerp to walk so much,” he informs Steve, pressing a hand against his stomach. “I knew we shouldn’t have stopped at that kebab place.”

“What, can’t handle a bit of exertion, old man?” Steve asks, not even attempting to hide his smug amusement.

Without looking at him, Bucky casually flips him off with one hand and pulls his cap lower on his face with the other. “Even my metabolism is a far cry from yours, shut up.”

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

It’s a reflexive exchange, words rolling out easy as an old poem, long-memorized. Bucky’s grin is bright beneath the brim of his cap, and he leans back on the bench, tipping his head up and closing his eyes. In the unforgiving exposure of direct light, the dark circles beneath his eyes stand in stark contrast to the rest of his face, but Steve thinks they might at least be an improvement over the entire preceding month.

“All right, where to next?” his friend asks after a moment, cracking an eye open against the sun’s glare.

Glancing around to double-check their bearings, Steve nods toward his left. “There’s this ice cream place Nat took me to a while back. They do ‘authentic’, whatever that means,” he says, with a roll of his eyes Bucky mirrors. “But it’s good—she swears it’s the only ice cream that lives up to her standards.”

Bucky snorts and says, fondly, “I’ve seen that woman devour a tub of crappy, dollar-store ice cream in one sitting.”

“Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean she likes it,” Steve agrees with a wink, and extends his hand to pull Bucky to his feet. They cover about a block in comfortable silence before Steve broaches the subject that’s been nagging at him essentially since DC, when Natasha had first mentioned the Winter Soldier. “So, you and Natasha?”

It wasn’t nearly as subtle as he’d intended, if Bucky’s unimpressed eyebrow quirk is any indication, but he takes pity on his old friend nonetheless and shrugs. “She was there, you know?” He drops his gaze to his red Converse, eyes gone unfocused on some distant memory. Steve tamps down the impulse to touch him, pull him back, but then Bucky blinks himself back to the present. “She knows things I could never say aloud, and that helps. Sometimes it feels like there’s this hanging expectation over my head to keep talking, but she just knows.”

In spite of his best efforts—this is _not_ about him, and he knows that—Steve feels a cold weight settle like lead in the pit of his stomach. He swallows it down, but some of his consternation must escape to his face anyway, because Bucky stops walking, pulling Steve to a halt with a hand on his shoulder. “That wasn’t a jab at you,” he tries to clarify. “I meant…SHIELD, the goddamn shrinks—”

“If you want me to tell them you want out of the program,” Steve offers hesitantly, but Bucky shakes his head emphatically enough to dislodge a few strands of his ponytail.

“No,” he says, then sighs, irritation flitting across his features the way it had so frequently in those first few weeks after his release from SHIELD. Drawing in a deep breath, he tries again: “The therapy, the talking, the cognitive whatever-the-hell, it…helps. Just, sometimes I can’t find the words, can’t describe what I do or don’t remember. And that’s why Nat is…” He trails off, shrugging helplessly, but Steve nods in comprehension.

“Is Nat,” he finishes.

Bucky gives him a long, searching look before he nods back, shoulders slumping in relief. On a foundational level, if not a practical one, Steve gets it. He remembers the way Natasha had looked at him, wary but stubborn, before asking, “Would you trust me to do it?”; remembers knowing his answer would be, “Yes,” before he’d even opened his mouth.

“Okay.” Bucky nods again. Then he slaps Steve across the back of the head and admonishes, “Now stop being an idiot.”

Startled, Steve laughs the rest of the way to the ice cream shop, Bucky bumping their shoulders together and grinning as they cross the threshold. The weight in Steve’s stomach subsides faster than snow in a heat wave.

“Ever tried chocolate-covered bacon ice cream?” Steve asks, and Bucky’s jaw finds his chest as he peers over Steve’s shoulder.

With a long, low, appreciative whistle, he shakes his head. “God bless America.”

Back on the street, they just amble for a while, too full and too lazy for a destination. At the New York Transit Museum, Bucky tugs them both inside when Steve observes the old train carriages are accurate but lack the smells of the thirties (he’s still undecided as to whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing). Down at the pier, Steve buys two cotton candy sticks, laughing when Bucky grimaces at them, still a trifle too green around the gills to contemplate eating anything further. The air between them is so easy, so relaxed, that it takes Steve a while to notice they’re approaching the edge of their old neighborhood.

They stop at a street corner, just looking. They’d used to sell newspapers there, Steve remembers, Bucky loud and charming against Steve’s good-natured cheer, his shoes too big for his body. They had made it their mutual mission to sell enough for some cigarettes and the cheapest, greasiest food they could find. He wonders if Bucky remembers the same.

“It’s different,” Bucky says after a moment.

“Yeah.”

Bucky smiles, an expression laced with remembrance more than sadness. “That’s a good thing, though—it used to stink, didn’t it?”

“Oh god, did it,” Steve agrees, laughing, his nose scrunching up. “Everywhere. I don’t know what I hated more, the freezing winters, or the stench in summer.”

“Worse in winter.”

“Mrs. Lebowitz with her cabbage soup! I swear I can still feel it after all these years, it’s embedded in my damn DNA.”

Laughing, Bucky’s smile turns wry as he exchanges a sidelong, commiserating glance with Steve. For the first time since he got back, it feels like they’re just _them_ , as though they’ve clawed their way back from hell but left it far enough in their rearview mirrors to breathe. Bucky lets his gaze skip around, taking in details rather than settling on any one thing. There’s a quasi-clinical aspect to it, the look of someone in search of something specific, but finally he looks away, eyes distant.

“You know,” he says, voice a gentle susurrus against the evening quiet of the city, “I like it like this. I keep thinking that I—I’ll open my eyes and it’ll all still be there, that I’ll wake up in that chamber, that time’s stopped. But it hasn’t, has it.”

That last is so quietly spoken that, even less than a foot away, Steve would have missed it were it not for his enhanced hearing. But there’s an accompanying, deep-seated peace in the way his friend holds himself, in the lines around his mouth and eyes. It’s reassuring.

“No,” Steve says, the unnecessary answer. “I’m starting to see the good in that, too.”

His throat is tight with something that tastes like the closest thing to closure reality has to offer, like resolution, like the anger he’s held condensed in his core—about Bucky, about the years he himself lost in the blink of an eye—has fallen away. Apace with Bucky’s healing, Steve’s beginning to comprehend the gravity of this second chance, beginning to appreciate it as a gift, not just a challenge or an obstacle or a chance for atonement.

Things _have_ changed. But perhaps that isn’t a bad thing.

“Do they still make Twinkies?”

Steve’s startled into a laugh for the second time in as many hours by the out-of-the-blue, absurd question. It feels a touch soggy around the edges, weighed down by relief.

Patting Bucky on the shoulder, Steve pulls him down the block toward a corner store that’s seen better days. “Yes. Well, they stopped for a while, but now they’re back.”

“Awesome.”

“Taste like synthetic crap.”

Bucky’s grin is infectious as he repeats, “Awesome.”

\----------

By the time they come back through the main entrance of the Tower, the sun has already set. Steve feels more settled than he has in ages, the rough edges of his Bucky-related anxiety finally sanded down. In the elevator, Bucky grins at him, shoulders relaxed, lines around his eyes less pronounced than they had been that morning. Steve grins back, convinced without qualms for the first time that they truly can do this: they can be Steve and Bucky again, now that they’ve finally, perhaps, stopped trying to go _back_. They’re still Steve and Bucky, with the added mold of their experiences. The change doesn’t have to only be a bad thing.

The elevator doors ding open onto the living room and their teammates in various states of laid-back ease. When Bucky makes his way to Natasha, dropping easily into the spot beside her on the sofa, her face softens. She throws Steve a subtly pleased look, an echo of that morning’s approval.

“Have fun?” Clint asks from his usual spot sprawled on the carpet, shoulders pressed against Natasha’s—and now Bucky’s—legs.

“Did you know you can take a cheese tour on Bleecker?” Steve asks by way of reply, bracing his hands on the back of a couch.

Thor’s head snaps up in immediate interest. His hair is twined into a fishtail braid to match Jane’s, and Steve thinks not for the first time that by far the most intriguing thing about Thor has to be the discrepancy between what he is and how he presents himself to those closest to him.

Bucky groans dramatically. “I should have stopped at the gorgonzola,” he mutters, tone belied by the smile encroaching at the corners of his mouth.

“No one stops at gorgonzola. That’s when the party starts,” Clint intones, so perfectly prosaic that Steve can’t help laughing.

“Or maybe the cheetos,” Bucky says.

In tandem, Steve offers, “Or that ramen burger,” to equal parts amazed and disgusted looks from the room’s occupants.

Except Jane, who simply shrugs, most of her attention still on the physics journal on her tablet. “At one point I was living on mustard and uncooked ramen. A burger sounds awesome.” When Bucky raises a disbelieving eyebrow, she shrugs again. “I was a very focused student with absolutely no cooking skills.”

“This is different from now?” Thor asks rhetorically, then squeaks indignantly when Jane elbows him.

The conversation devolves from there with alacrity, everyone attempting to one-up each other with some truly bizarre food combinations that leave Steve impressed and Bucky positively green. So Steve excuses himself in search of Tony, and Natasha catches his eye long enough to wave him in the direction of the kitchen. He finds Tony seated at the table, his phone sandwiched between shoulder and ear and two Stark tablets propped up in front of him. He doesn’t notice Steve at first, absorbed in that multitasking ability of his that never fails to evoke images of hurricanes for Steve, all rapid movement and chaos contained by forces beyond understanding, thoughts coming too quickly for anyone else to follow. It’s the first thing he’d truly liked about Tony, the sensation that something grand was happening just beneath the engineer’s fingertips, and you could see something incredible manifest if you waited just long enough.

“I’m a hopeful man, Pep, you know me,” Tony says, ending the declaration with a pout. “Don’t make that face, I can feel it. It hurts the deepest, darkest abyss of my soul that you don’t trust me.” He sobers then, expression zeroed-in like map coordinates, the way it gets when he’s actually paying genuine close attention to someone, particularly Pepper. “Yeah, but we need to trust that that goodwill continues. They showed interest, so now it’s our turn not to fuck it up.” A beat; then, “Yeah, well, it’s better than what we had before.”

Then he looks up, spotting Steve, and breaks into a pleased, easy smile. It lights up his face and makes Steve’s whole body light up like a Christmas tree in turn.

“Pep, we’ll continue this discussion later, okay? I have a hot piece of American paraphernalia I need to debauch.” Tony’s grin is entirely too gleeful as he disconnects the call, and Steve steps up behind him, hands come to rest on the other man’s hips. “Hey.”

“Hey. Problems?” Steve asks, already prepared to slip into business, but Tony waves him off and turns in his chair to face him.

“Nothing that can’t wait—diplomatic toe-dipping in international waters, nothing but talks so far. Wakanda has thrown us the equivalent of a friend request, but so far that’s all it is.” Stretching his neck from left to right, he shrugs. “This might go somewhere, but right now it’s a handful of well-placed words, so all we can do is wait and see if they don’t hate us as much as we thought they did.” Tony tips his head back enough to see Steve, a lopsided grin playing at his mouth, and hooks his fingers through Steve’s belt loops. “Enough politics, I am done for today. Your turn. Feel like a real New Yorker again?”

“Yep. And maybe a little nauseated.” Tony blinks at him in confusion, and Steve continues, “Did you know that there’s an all-you-can-eat kebab place next to the New York Transit Museum?”

“There’s a Transit Museum?” Tony replies, but he’s laughing. “So it was good?” he asks, entirely too much understanding in his voice for it to be a casual question, or one limited to the day’s culinary discoveries.

Steve draws in a breath, relishing the newfound absence of a fifty-pound weight on his chest. “Yeah.”

Tony hums, looking back up, and slides his hands to Steve’s hips for a moment before he pulls back. “I’m happy for you.” Pushing himself to his feet in one fluid motion, he kisses Steve, mouth a solid, heated point of pressure.

“So, all-you-can-eat kebab. Do you think they do deliveries?”

“Maybe, but don’t tell Bucky. I think he’s one M&M away from puking all over your living room couch.”

Tony beams at him, finding Steve’s hand with his and tugging him back toward the living room, phone and tablets left behind on the table. “You’ve ruined a supersoldier stomach, I am so proud of you.”

“Learned from the best,” Steve says cheerfully.

 

**vi. the longer we ignore it all the more that we will fight**

_7 July 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“The hell did you learn to cook like that?” Tony asks, grinning at Steve over the chest plate of the suit that had borne the brunt of the impact from an honest-to-god cannonball.

From the other end of the table, where he’s trying to get the feel of tablets for digital drawing, Steve grins back. “You’d be amazed at what you can conjure up when you literally have one moldy cabbage and some stale bread to work with. Getting creative when you have actual food to work with instead is kind of fun.”

Tony snorts. “Okay, thanks for your suffering? Thanks for making what was an awesome dinner depressing?”

But there’s mischief dancing in his eyes, and Steve mock-glares and throws a paperclip at him. “See if I ever cook for you again.”

Tony’s grin turns wicked. “Oh, you will.”

“Yeah, I will,” Steve relents, grinning back.

The workshop door slides open with a quiet swish, interrupting them to admit Bruce and Natasha. Before anyone has a chance to so much as acknowledge anyone else, Nat says, “JARVIS, lock down the workshop, please?”

“Done, Agent Romanov.”

For a beat, they’re left staring at one another in confusion. Then Tony says, “Hi?”

“You need to tell them,” Bruce says, uncharacteristically firm as he comes toward them, and Tony frowns.

“Tell who what?”

Natasha levels a flat, admonishing look of “you are _not_ that dense” at him. “You know what.”

She snags an open stool with the heel of her boot, declining to respond, and comprehension dawns on Steve first as his shoulders slump. “You mean Howard and Maria Stark,” he says quietly, his stylus clattering to the tabletop.

The silence is answer enough.

“This isn’t—”

Much to Steve’s surprise, it’s Bruce who cuts him off. “It’s not up for discussion anymore, and I think you know that,” he points out, blunt but not cruel. “We—” He motions to himself and vaguely upward, indicating the rest of the Tower’s occupants. “—understood the need to keep the search quiet. A large team going in probably would have done more harm than good, and most of us lack resources that would have helped, especially in the initial stages. But if they find out thirdhand, or some other way that isn’t from you, it’s…not going to go well.”

“It was an order,” Steve says dully to the table, but he doesn’t sound like he’s even convincing himself.

Looking between Steve and Tony, a tennis match with unprecedented implications, Natasha leans forward to brace her elbows against the table. “Rhodey and Pepper are your oldest friends, right?” she asks, mostly rhetorically. Tony nods mutely, and she looks back at Steve. “How would you take it if you learned one of them had not only murdered Bucky’s parents, but you’d been sharing a roof with them for months, programming or no?”

Another long, long moment of stillness; then, “I’d kill them.” His tone is nothing but resignation and misery.

“And the longer you wait, the more it’s going to seem like something that was deliberately hidden, not just something you hadn’t gotten to yet,” Bruce says.

“We’re not!” Steve argues, but Bruce holds up a hand.

“I know, I’m not saying you are. Just, the longer something’s put off, the easier it is to keep saying ‘later’.” He rolls his eyes, self-deprecating. “Trust me, I should know.”

Shooting Tony a sidelong glance, Natasha comments, “You’re being awfully quiet.”

One eyebrow raised, he sets the ratchet he’d been using down on the table. “What am I supposed to say? You’re wrong?” He shrugs. “I know you’re not. But I didn't know how to tell them two months ago, and I still don’t now. You already knew,” he says to Natasha, then tips his head at Bruce. “And with you, it just happened to come up. I didn’t exactly make a planned announcement.”

“There _is_ no good way to say it,” she informs him. “You just say it.”

Sighing, Tony rakes a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “Yeah.” He turns to Steve, whose expression is all pained, tight lines and shadowed eyes, and takes a step closer to brush their shoulders together. “You know they’re right.”

“That doesn’t make it any less fucked up,” Steve retorts. “But you’re right. They have a right to know.”

Tony sighs again, but before he can speak, Natasha advises, “Do it when he’s not here.”

When Steve opens his mouth, Tony steps hard on his foot. “I know. Which is why what I was going to say was, JARVIS, when is Bucky’s next appointment.” He doesn’t bother clarifying, since the where doesn’t matter as long as it isn’t the Tower.

“Sergeant Barnes will be at SHIELD from 1300 to 1530 tomorrow afternoon,” the AI replies promptly, and Nat dips her head in Tony’s direction in a tacit apology.

Drawing in a deep breath, Tony says reluctantly, “Make sure the rest of…everyone is here tomorrow at that time. Don’t call the meeting until I ask.”

“Of course, sir.”

\----------

_8 July 2015_

Not long after noon, JARVIS calls the team and most of the other Tower residents to the labs. At least one of them is usually unoccupied, reserved for special projects or the team’s equivalent of research fellows, and today they’re reassigning it as an impromptu conference room. This isn’t a discussion for a boardroom, they’re not about to ask anyone to have their personal floor associated with this meeting for the rest of eternity, and the secure room in the basement is overkill. Plus, above the communal floor it’s all glass and open space; it isn’t as though they’ll somehow miss it if Bucky gets back early.

Tony’s leaning against the edge of a table at the back of the room with false ease, a coffee mug in his left hand and his phone in his right. But his usual boundless movement has been replaced by an eerily unnatural stillness, his grip on the mug so tight his fingers are bloodless; his attention isn’t on the phone, either, as much as it is Steve, standing beside him against the wall. He, too, is attempting to project an air of calm. He, too, is only barely maintaining the veneer of normality.

As a silent gesture of support, Natasha had met them there, arriving well before the others and taking a seat on the edge of a table, one leg drawn up beneath her. Bruce is across the room, helping to bracket Tony and Steve in, serve as a buffer even if no one truly believes it’s necessary.

“You don’t have to be there,” Tony had offered him the day before.

Except Bruce, who avoided touching most people like he was afraid he’d hulk out and flatten them, had wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulders in a brief hug. All he’d said as he left was, “I know.”

Sam is the first to arrive, taking the desk chair in front of Natasha’s table. Pepper, Rhodey, and Carol are moments behind, but their “what the hells” die on their lips when they see the expressions on the others’ faces. Clint enters a couple minutes later, closely followed by Thor and the Maximoffs, then Maria, Sharon, and Vision. Jane and Betty come in talking quietly between themselves about some test results, but their conversation ceases in the space of a breath.

Tony’s pushing himself upright, about to say that everyone is there and that Coulson had said he and Darcy would probably be late. Then, as if on cue, they walk through the door. Not surprisingly, it’s Darcy who breaks the stilted, weighty silence as she looks around the room.

“This is the weirdest team meeting ever.”

“No arguments here,” Clint says from where he’s perched on a stool on the other side of Nat’s table, in a way that should be impossible for a human being.

“Tony, what is this?” Pepper asks for all of them, worry creasing her brow.

When Tony finally stands, the look Steve shoots him mirrors the concern in Pepper’s, but Tony reaches back just long enough to brush Steve’s hand with his. That no one, not even Clint or Pietro, makes a snarky comment, speaks volumes about the tenor of the room.

Steve had tried to offer to be the one to tell the others, but Tony had turned him down. “Don’t do that to yourself,” he’d said softly, fingers tracing the lines of Steve’s ribs as they lay curled together in bed.

“And it’s better for you?” Steve had asked incredulously, but Tony merely shrugged.

“You’ll get enough flak defending Bucky,” he’d said, as neutrally as possible. “There’s no reason you should take all the heat.”

Which is why Tony is the one who says now, “Thanks for coming. This is kind of a weird group, but you all either live here or spend way too much time here or work with us, so we—I—thought you should be aware.” He shifts his weight, draws in a lungful of air. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room unless someone tells you otherwise, and there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m assuming you’ll have questions, but just…hold them for a minute. Let me finish.” His voice falters for a moment, and he looks up, but not at anyone in particular, gaze fixed instead on a point past their heads out the windows. “You all know my parents died in a car accident back when I was at MIT. Turns out it wasn’t as much of an accident as we thought. They were murdered. By Hydra. And Hydra sent the Winter Soldier to do it.”

His voice is the kind of artificial, near-monotonous calm that can only be the product of forceful concentration and extensive practice. Literally no one so much as breathes for a long, long minute: if the silence had been heavy before, they’re in a vacuum now.

Finally Clint says, with a note in his voice that sounds like hope but a look on his face that says he knows there is none, “You’re talking about one of the operatives they had on ice, right?”

It’s Natasha who answers: “No, he means Barnes.” She, too, speaks with that enforced calm, but the tiny lines around her mouth and eyes are carved deep, far deeper than usual. “Steve and I found the…footage. In that SHIELD bunker we tripped over when Pierce was after us.”

“Footage.” Rhodey says it the way one might say, “genocide”, his voice as cold as his expression. On his left, Pepper has a hand wrapped around his bicep; on the other side, Carol mirrors her position, like they’re afraid he’ll go charging out the door in search of Bucky at the drop of a hat. (They’re probably not wrong.)

“Yes,” Steve confirms, meeting Rhodey’s gaze squarely.

“You’ve known all this time,” Thor says, eyes on Tony, who nods tersely. “And you…do not hold a grudge?” When Tony doesn’t answer right away, Thor swings around to glare at Coulson, rage rising in his face as he asks, “Were you coerced into—”

“No,” Tony breaks in immediately, before Thor in his loyalty can throw the only decent SHIELD director they’ve ever had out the window. “I was never blackmailed, I was never even asked. I offered.”

Narrowing her eyes, Wanda looks at him carefully. “Then you do _not_ hold this against him?”

“No. Yes. I—” Tony breaks off, a note of frustration slipping into his voice as he drags a hand over his face. “Look. I’m never not going to be pissed that Hydra or Russia or Nazis or whoever decided murdering my parents would be a good plan. I offered my help finding Barnes to help a friend. At first, seeing him was like…like seeing Stane walk through the goddamn door.” Most of the room winces; those who don’t can take a hint from the others’ reactions and Tony’s expression, even if they have no clue who Stane was. “But James Barnes didn’t accept the order. A Russian-trained operative with no capability to refuse did.”

“He wears the same face,” Carol says cautiously. “That’s a hard distinction to make.”

Tony’s answering laugh is hollow and harsh, and Steve steps away from the wall to rest a hand on the small of his back. It isn’t much, but it’s something. Then again, the bar on their expectations is all but subterranean these days. “Tell me about it. Compartmentalizing them is getting easier; getting _there_ was not. Still isn’t.”

“The point is…” He trails off, so Bruce steps in.

“The point is,” he continues for Tony, “is that going after Barnes for this isn’t going to do anybody any good.”

Rhodey stares open-mouthed at his best friend. “He _killed your parents_!”

“You think I don’t _know_ that?” Tony snaps back, the iron grip he’s had on his self-control cracking for the first time. Steve would swear he can feel its ricochet through Tony’s body. “You think I didn’t want to kill him myself the first time I saw the confirmation?” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve flinch. “But having your name tied to shit you either didn’t do or didn’t know was happening is fucked up and I— _we_ —wanted you to hear it directly, not later on from god knows where. You have a right to know, since you all live here or have direct connections here, but if I don’t even believe the guy living under this roof would accept that order if his brain was intact, none of you should, either. And while I can’t do shit about what you do and don’t believe, I’m _asking_ you to leave it be and not go after him for this.”

Then he drops the mug on the table behind him with a heavy thud and shoves himself away from it, walking right between Coulson and Sharon and out the door. No one dares try to stop him.

\----------

Silence falls in the wake of Tony’s departure.

Then, one on top of the other, Clint says, “What the _hell_ ,” over Maria’s, “Well, that explains a lot.”

“I’m sorry, everyone,” Steve says miserably, falling back against the table Tony had just left and dropping his face into his hands.

A beat; then, “For what?”

It should be an aggressive question, an accusatory one, but Sharon sounds genuinely uncertain. Nor is she alone: most of the others don’t look any more confident.

“Dragging you all into this? Taking so long to tell you?”

“Why _didn’t_ you tell us sooner?” Rhodey demands, tone barely restraining all the accusation that had been absent in Sharon’s question, not a trace of ambiguity to be had.

With a single raised eyebrow, Natasha saves Steve from having to answer. “Oddly, we didn’t want to drop this on you during a five-minute break between meetings, just in case it failed to sit well. I can’t imagine why we were concerned about that.”

For a moment, Rhodey looks suitably chastened, but the anger returns a breath later. “You had no right to keep this from us!”

“We weren’t trying to,” Steve protests, trying to keep from sounding defensive. “But when exactly did we have time to have this conversation between now and when we found him? The tests, the hearings, _everything_ —we get an hour of downtime and this is how we should have spent it?”

“You made time to tell him, clearly,” Rhodey points out, motioning to Bruce.

With a resigned sigh—they’d expected that one—the scientist shrugs. “I spent almost a week straight in medical working with Tony _and_ Barnes. You of all people should know he was bound to accidentally say _something_.”

“Rhodey,” Pepper says quietly, hand still on his arm. Just that, nothing else; they have both known Tony too long to be impartial, and while she is clearly no less furious than Rhodey, she also seems to be more inclined to hold her reservations for the moment.

Turning again to face Coulson, as if he'd never been interrupted ten minutes ago, Thor asks, “Did you know?” The question is calmer, but there’s a dangerous undercurrent rolling through his voice like a storm front, a promise that, no matter how fond he is of Phil Coulson, he will have no compunctions about holding him accountable.

“Yes and no,” Phil answers, then holds up a preemptive hand, “which I know is far from helpful. There were rumors, but there were _always_ rumors. Every assassination, or any sort of high-profile hit, without a known perpetrator would at some point be considered a potential Winter Soldier op.” Shaking his head, he sighs, looking so much older than he had when he’d walked in the door.

“He was like the IC’s boogeyman—can't explain it? Maybe it was the Winter Soldier. No forensics? Maybe it was the Winter Soldier. But he was practically a myth, and no MO or signature had ever been linked to him, in his kills, his explosives, anything. And while the Starks had their share of enemies, it was an MVA, and we had nothing concrete to suggest it was staged.” With a nod at Steve and Natasha, he continues, “Until they gave their after-action reports, we couldn’t confirm it.”

Thor looks far from satisfied, but he doesn’t press.

“How did Tony find out?” Betty asks suddenly, expression unreadable. Then she glances at Steve. “Did you tell him?”

“I did,” Steve answers reluctantly, hating himself even as the words leave his mouth, “but he already knew. Said he’d found it himself when he was compiling the dossier on the Winter Soldier.”

“Scheiße,” Wanda mutters. She lets her head fall forward, chin to her chest, as Vision rests a hand on her shoulder.

“So you stood there and asked us to live side-by-side with someone who has god knows how much blood on his hands and didn't bother to mention it?”

Steve gives Rhodey a helpless look, but now he can feel the low simmer of anger beginning to blend with the guilt. “He’s my best friend. What would you have done?”

“Not made everyone live next to an assassin,” Rhodey says sharply, and this time it’s Carol who tries to draw him back.

Before anyone else has a chance to respond, however, Natasha speaks: “You already were.”

“Because no one thought we needed to know,” Rhodey repeats, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t mean Barnes,” she says coolly, lifting her chin. “I meant me.” For the second time in half an hour, the room goes deathly still. Off to her right, Clint tenses, though whether in anticipation of defending her or defending _against_ her Steve has no idea. “If he has no place here, neither do I.”

“We _knew_ about you,” Rhodey snaps, but it’s the exact wrong thing to say. If the chagrin on his face is any indication, he knows that before he’s even spoken; so does everyone else, and when this had become a faceoff between Rhodey and Nat—Tony’s best friend and most unlikely close friend—is anyone’s guess.

She lets the silence hover there, precariously balanced on the tightrope tension, for a long minute. Then she slams it over the edge to shatter across the floor. “So are you angry because you think we placed all of you in genuine danger, or because you weren’t the first to know?”

Just like that, Rhodey goes from belligerent anger to shocked, offended silence. Beside him, Carol comes to her feet, defensive. “That isn’t fair.”

“No,” Natasha says coldly. “It isn’t.” It doesn't take a genius to realize that she’s not actually agreeing with Carol.

After a tense moment in which, for a breath, it’s unclear if this is going to end in broken glass and bruises, Sam steps in, intervening with the steady rationality only he really possesses. “No one in this room has clean hands,” he says, soft but firm, “not entirely—no one, whether we pulled the triggers or gave the commands ourselves or not. And arguably almost all of us were fully capable of consent when we accepted our orders or made our decisions; Barnes was not. We can’t afford to start holding each other to double standards.” He looks up at each of them, slow and deliberate, and adds, “Especially when they’re already trying to break us apart from the outside.”

“And it isn’t our choice to make,” Pepper adds, picking up where he leaves off. “Barnes hasn’t so much as said ’boo’ to any of us, which means the only person directly affected by any of this is Tony, who was apparently one of the first to be willing to put it aside.” She sounds the way Steve thinks she must when she’s addressing boardrooms and angry CEOs, firm and no-nonsense; then she sighs, shaking her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m furious on his behalf, but maybe we owe him this. He’s asking us to move past it, not to forget it. If he can manage that, I think we should respect that decision.”

Pushing away from the wall, Maria tips her head in Pepper’s direction. “As his friends, however unlikely a relationship that may have been for some of us, I think she’s right. We _do_ owe him this. Forcing someone to pay for actions they weren’t capable of refusing is a gray area at best, and every choice Barnes has made since he went off the Helicarrier says he never wanted any of that.”

“At the end of the day,” Sharon begins, “Barnes was one of us. He didn’t _choose_ the other side, it chose him.” With a shake of her head, blue eyes full of bitterness and heartbreak, she adds, “But he got out. That has to mean something.”

Clint chooses that moment to stand, pressing his palms flat to the table with a sigh. The look he casts across the room is anything but amicable, though when he speaks his voice is level. “I doubt I need to remind you I almost killed Natasha on the Helicarrier three years ago. I almost killed half the people _in this room_ , and none of you held that against me, even though you should have. I was brainwashed, it wasn’t my choice, it was Loki, whatever; those are the things _you_ all told me in the aftermath. I’m not self-centered enough to compare Barnes’ situation to mine, but I know enough.” He pauses, a flash of sadness passing over his face like a veil. “He had no choice. But we do: give Barnes—and Tony, if the thing holding you up is that he didn’t say anything—the consideration we’ve shown each other for equally terrible shit.” Reaching out, Natasha lays her hand over his, and Clint’s shoulders sag, as though the words—or the memories—have sapped him of his strength.

No one seems to have anything to say in response to that, and finally Phil orders quietly, “Go. Walk it off, hit a bag, take a couple days’ leave, whatever it is you need to do.”

He draws in a breath, his expression cold and fixed: only a few of them have been told how, exactly, Fury brought him back, and even those who haven’t are aware the circumstances were less than ideal. Mercifully, no one is so bereft of their senses to bring that up. “I’m not making this an order,” he continues, “not yet. I do not _want_ to make this an order, but I will if I have to. I am merely suggesting that Barnes has paid enough, and I highly doubt the justice system is done with him.”

There’s a rawness to his voice that has nothing to do with the Director of SHIELD and everything to do with a man named Phil Coulson asking the closest people he has to friends to remember that Bucky Barnes is hardly the only person in the building to have been violently sundered from their entire life. That he’ll say as much given the company—he knows all of them, but he's not necessarily close to everyone—says far too much about the gravity of the discussion.

Swallowing hard, Steve straightens, drawing their attention back to him and away from Phil. “Let’s get out of here before we say or do something we regret. If you want to yell at me, you know where to find me, but if you’re going to yell at someone, yell at me. Tony and Bucky have dealt with enough.”

At first he thinks Rhodey’s going to take him up on that right then and there; then he stalks out of the room, and Carol shoots Steve an apologetic, sympathetic look before she follows, probably to stop her boyfriend from killing someone. Clint and Maria exchange looks before he goes to Phil and she goes to Natasha, both of them speaking too quietly to be heard, if they’re speaking at all. From across the room, Sharon meets his gaze, holds it for a few seconds, and nods once, while Darcy is just Darcy and walks up to give him a hug before she leaves.

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I can do to help,” Jane says softly as Betty walks over to Bruce, “but for what it’s worth, I get it. I don’t think I’d be able to make the same choice Tony did, but I respect it, and I have no problems with Bucky.”

Something loosens in Steve’s chest at that, makes it easier to breathe, to think, knowing that he hasn’t left _everything_ in ruins. “Thank you,” he manages, and Thor reaches out to grip his shoulders.

“I have been where you are,” he says, blue eyes filled with too much understanding, and so much empathy Steve thinks it might break him. “It’s a difficult thing, being forced to choose between the ones you love.” He hesitates, a rare enough occurrence to catch Steve’s attention, then looks right at Steve with that unnerving god’s stare. “You are certain Tony was not pressured into accepting this?”

Steve nods tiredly. “The only person pressuring him about any of this is himself. _I_ feel like I’m pressuring him, but he keeps insisting otherwise.”

“That sounds like Tony,” Jane says, and the corner of Thor’s mouth quirks up in agreement. “Tell him we…”

She trails off awkwardly, but Steve offers them both a weak smile. “I will.” He’s relatively certain Thor will seek Tony out himself at some point, anyway, so it’s mostly moot, but he appreciates the effort.

On the other side of the room, he catches Sam’s eye and mouths, “Wait a sec?” When Sam nods, Steve starts toward Wanda and Pietro, but Pepper intercepts him before he’s taken more than two steps.

“He did this for you.” It isn’t a question, but it isn’t quite an indictment, either; Steve has no idea how to respond to it. Finally she says, “Don’t let it be for nothing,” kisses his cheek, and slips away, presumably to find Tony.

When he reaches the twins, who are still standing with Vision, he can’t help observing, “You were quiet about all this.”

Pietro raises an eyebrow and gives him a look like he’s lost his mind. “Have you met our father?” he asks. In spite of everything, it draws the most minuscule of smiles from Steve, who tips his head in a silent “touché”.

“Forgiveness is a difficult choice,” Vision says, “and that is the one Tony made. Barnes has made no attempt to harm any of us, and your instinct to protect him is understandable.”

“You did what you felt you had to, what was most likely to keep everyone as safe as possible,” Wanda says, as if continuing where he left off. “You accepted an offer, you didn’t make a demand, and Tony could have held a grudge.” Glancing aside at her brother, she adds, “We did, and you know how that ended for us. You welcomed us despite what we did, and we did it knowingly. We would be hypocrites if we passed judgment on someone who had no choice.”

It’s the most words he’s ever heard her say at once, and he blinks at her for a second. “Thank you,” he says finally, and Wanda gives him a small smile, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm; then they, too, make their way out of the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha say something to Maria and motion upstairs, before Maria turns and heads for the door. She doesn’t say anything to Steve, only nods, but she doesn’t have to. It leaves him, Nat, and Bruce alone with Sam, and Steve draws in a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out immediately, the moment the door clicks shut. “We should have told you.”

“We actually thought we had,” Natasha says, running a hand through her hair. “It wasn’t until…well, yesterday that we realized we never had.”

“It’s okay,” Sam tells them.

“Yeah, we—what?”

Sam actually laughs. “It would have been a good piece of intel to have—I’m surprised I missed it, frankly—but ultimately it wouldn’t have changed any of my decisions.” Shrugging one shoulder, he looks to Steve. “In most situations, I’d be pretty pissed, but this wasn’t most situations. Second chances, real ones, are rare, and I wouldn’t have stood in the way of yours. If he’d gone and murdered the Starks just because, that’d be one thing; but it was an assignment, and we weren’t looking for that assassin.”

The room is again thrown into silence as the three of them stare at Sam, agape. Steve is the first to find his voice, saying faintly, “Okay, that’s not what I was expecting.”

With a snort and a shake of his head, Sam points out, “You have enough to deal with. I get that it wasn’t intentional. We’re good.”

Sliding off the table, Natasha loops her arm through his, a silent expression of gratitude. “Great,” she says dryly. “Now there’s just everyone else.”

 

**vi. all the debris & all this dust, what is left of what once was**

_19 July 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“Hey, food’s here!” Rhodey yells from the elevator as he walks into the common room with eight pizzas; behind him, Pietro’s carrying another seven. (Living with supersoldiers means anything but a cheap grocery bill.)

Clint sighs, slouching back into the sofa cushions with a whooshing sound. “Thank god for whoever invented delivery,” he says to no one in particular.

“Amen,” Sam agrees, passing drinks around the room.

They have been back at the Tower for a whopping two hours. Translation: barely long enough to grab showers, take one deep breath, and collapse in the common room while praying fervently that no one’s phone will produce so much as a news alert, never mind a phone call. It’s been nearly three straight weeks of jumping from country to country on calls, and while they’d stopped counting after call twenty, they haven’t had a chance to set foot in the Tower more than twice, and for about five minutes to resupply, at that. Therefore, with the possible exception of Steve, none of them have the energy or willpower to do anything but cross their fingers and hope the reprieve is long enough to give them time to get more than ten minutes of sleep and eat something that isn’t either a protein bar or beef jerky.

On the plus side, they’re all too exhausted to argue about Bucky; and, since the first call had come at 0330h the night of the meeting, no one’s had a spare minute to really discuss it. There had been time for Steve to tell Bucky _of_ the meeting, and for him to reacquire some paranoia, but not for any manner of confrontation. The constant chaos left plenty of time for thinking, but with the need for everyone to trust everyone else to watch their backs, things had returned to something approaching equilibrium. While it’s doubtful the matter is over, for the moment none of them—including Rhodey—has the mental capacity to so much as wince when Bucky enters the room.

In an effort to keep themselves awake long enough to achieve the latter, they and everyone else living at the Tower have been mainlining _Burn Notice_ for the last hour and change. It’s mostly loud enough to wake the dead on its own, but even if it wasn’t, Natasha, Sharon, Maria, Clint, and anyone else who’s ever worked for the IC shouting about inaccuracies is entertaining enough to achieve the same goal.

At some point a while later, when they’re still working their way through the pizzas and have switched to some film with a lot of explosions and cursing, set in what’s probably supposed to be a Middle Eastern country but instead looks suspiciously like the California desert, Tony sighs. “You know, this is the thing about Hollywood that makes me crazy,” he says, gesturing at the television with his water bottle and sounding far more alert than he has any right to be.

“You mean there’s only _one_ thing about Hollywood that makes you crazy?” Bruce says rhetorically. Tony rolls his eyes and refuses to dignify that with an answer.

“They can find consultants to tell them what kind of guns they should be using and how a spaceship would work,” he continues, “but apparently they can’t find a consultant with the brain cells to point out that this whole magic-epiphany-erasing-PTSD thing doesn’t ever actually work like that.”

“To be fair, most of them also seem to have missed every weapon safety briefing ever and can’t tell the difference between a chokehold and an arm bar,” Natasha says sardonically from where she’s sort of slumped against Clint’s side. “Not to mention they all think snapping necks takes far more force than it does in reality, but point.”

“It’s like doctors giving diagnoses for anything they’ve never lived through,” Sam agrees. “Because if a shrink had a clue, they’d stop insisting they understand and know you don’t—”

“—get _past_ trauma, you just learn to live with it,” Tony finishes with him in tandem, altogether too much knowing sarcasm in his voice.

From his place in the kitchen trying to find a bottle of water of his own in the warehouse Tony calls a refrigerator, Bucky snaps his head around so fast he almost bangs into a shelf. Most of the room is nodding in agreement, and Bucky’s left trying to pick his jaw up off the floor without success.

It’s been just _over_ three months since he got back to the States, and just shy of three months since he was unofficially released from SHIELD custody to take up residence at Avengers Tower. He has at least grown used to being around other people, and if he still doesn’t go out of his way to speak all that often, progress is progress and he’s mostly stopped flinching whenever someone so much as blinks at him. What he hasn’t been able to stop is the ceaseless anger that simmers beneath his skin like water set to low boil, or the guilt that is always close on its heels. He’s angry that he feels guilty and guilty that he feels angry, and he doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to shut the cycle down. If he could figure out what the question was, he’d ask someone—maybe, or at least he might have three weeks ago—but that, too, is frustratingly elusive and ephemeral.

There’s a paradoxical imperative suspended in his subconscious like a broken command line. On one hand, he must apologize for everything, despite knowing he can’t possibly make reparations for all the things he’s done (and then begins feeling like a broken record). Simultaneously, he’s trying to force himself to be the old Bucky Barnes again, the man he was before the war. If he can do that, his brain illogically insists, everything will be fine. For all he knows, it might be right, but you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole without first carving it into something new. He’s been reshaped so many times by so many different hands that he wouldn’t know _where_ to begin even if he could figure out how.

In brief moments, like the day in Brooklyn with Steve, he’s begun to feel that progress—that _healing_ —can be found without turning back time. What has not yet been found is a way to retain that feeling. It’s never occurred to him that anyone else might understand, and he’s both relieved and irrationally angry that he never thought to ask and they never thought to offer.

“Sure,” Tony continues from the sofa, reaching for another slice of pizza, “eventually it even stops being the first and only thing you think of when you wake up, when you close your eyes, when you do…pretty much anything.”

“It just takes way too fucking long to get there,” Clint finishes, and Natasha raises a closed fist for him to bump with his own.

Finally Bucky remembers that he’s still standing there with the fridge door open, and he shuts it hurriedly like that’s what he’d intended to do all along. He pauses to add another slice to his plate from one of the boxes on the counter, then traces his way back to claim the armchair he’s had since sometime that afternoon—and that he’d almost vacated when he’d heard the team return, until Tony and Rhodey both waved him back into it, too tired for words. Though he tries his damnedest to pay attention to whatever is currently playing, he’s mostly stuck on the conversation he’d just heard. The words rattle around in his head, a magic 8 ball that has yet to send its answer floating to the surface.

He wonders if the number of atrocities you’ve committed can disqualify you from achieving anything resembling progress. He doesn’t know if he thinks the answer should be yes or no.

\----------

They break for the night less than an hour later, since the majority of them are asleep on their feet and still have meetings or are scheduled for a flight to the facility upstate in the morning. Bucky does the same—or tries to. Instead he spends half an hour pacing in his quarters before he gives up and heads back down to the common floor. It’s not as though his own living room lacks books or a television, but when the voices in his head refuse to shut the hell up, sometimes being in communal space helps, even if (especially if) it’s empty. Something about the amount of open space, the ability to see literally everything despite being surrounded by three floors, is reassuring. His training tells him that makes no sense; he likes to think that means he’s pushing Russia’s Winter Soldier mantle a little farther away.

To his surprise, the room isn’t unoccupied. The lights are dimmed, but the television’s running something to do with cops and lawyers (USA Network’s perpetual marathons are great for insomnia, what can you do), and Thor’s stretched out on one of the sofas. He looks up when the elevator chimes and Bucky steps out.

“Have you forgotten something?” he asks, pushing himself upright as though he’s about to help in searching.

Shifting his weight awkwardly, unsure of his welcome, Bucky shakes his head. “No,” he says after a beat, “I just couldn’t sleep. Sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be down here.”

Thor smiles, settling back into the couch and gesturing Bucky in before he can slip away. “I believe I am suffering from what you would call jet lag,” he says wryly, reminding Bucky that he’d been called off-world at the same time the rest of the team had left and only gotten back a week ago, just in time to catch the tail end of the “weeks of crises that wouldn’t end” tour. “I did not think that possible, but it seems crossing worlds with enough frequency will affect even my people.”

He seems amused and, for an immortal demigod built like a football linebacker on steroids who can conveniently control thunder and lightning, relatively amiable and unthreatening. For lack of any other options that aren’t rude enough to make his mother smack him upside the head from her grave, Bucky shrugs and sinks as unobtrusively as possible into one of the other couches. Of all the team members, he’s spent the least amount of time with Thor. Between his own hermit proclivities of late and the amount of time Thor’s spent off-world searching for gems or something, their paths have crossed pretty infrequently; he’s not actually sure if they’ve ever even been in the same room without the rest of the team present. Unfortunately, all that currently means is that Bucky has no way to guess how Thor will react to him now.

They meander through the rest of the current episode—“Your laws can be very strange,” Thor observes at one point, startling Bucky into a laugh—before the commercial break hits. Then Bucky abruptly realizes how disconcerting the full weight of a god’s focus can be.

“I know why I am awake,” Thor says, an uncomfortable minute later, “but why are you?”

For a moment, Bucky considers not answering. A moment after _that_ , he wonders if Thor would be able to tell if he was lying (Steve would say he’s always been a crappy liar; before Russia he would have been right). “Sleeping’s pretty hit or miss these days,” he replies eventually.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Thor’s nod, and he has the fleeting, futile thought that the conversation will end there. But whatever he’d considered Thor _might_ say, the reality isn’t even close. “I think it is universal for children to fear the dark,” he says. “Adults tell them it is unfounded, that they fear only specters of their imaginations. We never tell them that, one day, they cease to be imaginary.”

“Sins come to life, or something like that,” Bucky agrees, and he can hear the exhaustion in his own voice.

Lips pursed, Thor gives him a long, assessing look before he offers, “Steven speaks highly of you.”

Maybe it’s supposed to feel like a nonsense tangent, but Bucky’s been having this conversation too often. “He’s remembering the person he grew up with,” he says softly, cutting his gaze away, “not the person they made.”

Mercifully, Thor doesn’t ask him who “they” are. “I don’t believe he is,” he says instead. “The Captain is not an unintelligent man—” And okay, Bucky kind of has to give him that one. “—and his support for you is not blind. You and I may not be well acquainted, but Steven has spoken of you since we first met.” He smiles, just barely, an expression tinged with sadness. “We will forgive our loved ones many sins, and the actions you took were not done of your own volition.”

Awkwardly, Bucky shrugs one shoulder, unsure of how to respond. Calling Thor a god is one thing, but it’s easy to forget who he is and what that means sometimes, that he was born royalty into a world predating Shakespeare by millennia, that beneath the affable personality lies power and intellect and danger. Of all of them, he and Steve are probably the most personable, but it makes it easy to fall for the illusion that they are harmless, even gullible.

“I still did them,” he replies, because he has to say something before the silence crushes them both, and Thor nods once.

“You did,” he concedes, “but having blood on your hands does not mean you are beyond saving.”

Bucky sighs, still refusing to meet Thor’s eyes, and finally speaks the thought that’s been coiled on his tongue for a month. “I know you know what I did, to Tony’s parents,” he says. “Blood on my hands is one thing, but this is…personal. I’m not entirely sure why you haven’t thrown me off the Tower.”

Again, that sad smile, which suddenly makes sense when he asks, “You know of my brother Loki, yes?”

There is absolutely no polite or politically correct response to that question, so Bucky just inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“He did terrible things to your world, to mine, but while you are repentant he is as obdurate as he was when we were children, with a bitterness he has acquired, in part because of me. And yet he is my brother, and I love him, and if we could do for him what your psychics here have done for you, I prefer to believe he could be the brother I remember. But even were that possible, he still acted at least in part under his own free will, and the same cannot be said of you.” He sighs, and suddenly he looks his age. “We have all made our mistakes; those who love you stand with you even then.”

Bucky huffs out a harsh half-laugh. “You’re a god,” he points out, not unkindly. “I’m pretty sure your mistakes don’t involve being brainwashed into killing lots of people.”

To his surprise, Thor laughs outright, shaking his head. “Perhaps not,” he agrees, “but that does not make them insubstantial. Before my father exiled me to Midgard, I was brash, arrogant—I nearly threw my people into war because I believed I knew better than the Allfather, and my closest friends would have died for no other reason than that they chose to accompany me in my foolishness. By my people’s standards, I am young, but still old enough to have had more wisdom than I showed.” He pauses, waiting for Bucky to look over at him before he continues. “Forgiveness is something that others may grant but for which you cannot ask of anyone except yourself. Guilt, however, comes from all sides in spades. You do not have to understand _why_ your family has forgiven you in order to accept it.”

Raking his hand through his hair, Bucky blows out a sharp breath. “Maybe,” he says, “but it doesn’t make it any easier to go back to being the person you were.”

Thor cocks his head to the side, asks, “Why do you believe you must?”

Startled, Bucky opens his mouth to answer, except all he can come up with is a reflexive “because”, so he shuts his mouth instead of saying that aloud. The knowing look he receives in reply suggests it didn’t make a difference.

“What you endured changed you,” Thor tells him, “as training has changed Natasha, as your wars changed Anthony and your Captain. Loki will never again be the friend I knew as a child, but we have eternity to learn if he can change at all. I can no more return to the person I was before I lost Mjölnir than you can become the man you were when you first left home in service of your country.” Bucky frowns, but before he can say he knew all that, Thor adds, “To be different is not inherently evil—it seems to me that you are the only one who truly expects you to go back to the man you once were.”

Bucky bites back the instinctive desire to respond, letting himself ponder that for a while. “It’s terrifying,” he says at last, half-confession, “looking into the mirror and not knowing if you like that person.”

“It is,” Thor agrees. His smile is bittersweet, but gentle, and laced with altogether too much understanding that Bucky won’t question, not now. “But I have never yet come across anything important that was not.”

Unbidden, Bucky thinks back to the war, to watching Steve’s six through the scope of a sniper rifle. He thinks of summers in Brooklyn, dashing through crowded streets with a handful of pilfered apples in his pockets, the only fruit they’ve seen in months. He thinks of his first kiss, a memory as faded as an old photograph from a lifetime ago, and the way his heart had been thundering like a drum in his chest. He thinks of the moment he let go, of falling, and falling, always, inexorably falling, and how he didn’t—doesn’t—regret it at all.

“Yeah,” he replies, breathing out.

Thor doesn’t respond, but his silence says more than words ever could.

 

**vii. to hunt me down—alive or dead**

_29 July 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

By the end of July, Bucky’s begun to feel like a semblance of a functional human being—most days, anyway. Interacting with the rest of the world on a social level and not an operational one is still foreign, something too high-risk and unpredictable to attempt with any regularity, but even SHIELD has lowered his threat level (the one he isn’t supposed to know about). Progress may be so slow it often feels stagnant, but he has at least learned not to anticipate being hunted down and beaten for the crime of walking down a hallway, or of doing irreparable harm to his teammates when they happen upon one another in the gym.

Baby steps, or so they keep saying.

Trust, for the team, much less himself, still hovers uncertainly behind a locked door for which he’s lost the key, but his steps backward are nonetheless growing smaller and more infrequent. After learning the others had been informed of his role in the Starks’ deaths, he’d spent weeks expecting _someone_ to corner him, or maybe shoot him in the stairwell, but the more time that passed, the more the team appeared to return to normal—at least with him. Steve, Tony, and Natasha have all flatly refused to answer any of his inquiries, direct or otherwise, as to whether or not they’ve been confronted about it. That doesn’t stop him from seeing the awkward avoidance between Nat and Rhodey for a few weeks when they’re not out on calls, the guilt-ridden look in Steve’s eyes, the guarded wariness in Tony’s. Except it’s too easy to blame those factors on other issues, particularly when they are all of them too happy to take what they can get, so SOP as far as he’s concerned remains at “everything’s fine, you focus on you”. But however much progress he may have made, at the end of July he is absolutely nowhere near ready to be in the field again.

He isn’t given a choice in the matter.

At varying levels of awareness, he’s known the team has been fighting tooth and nail against a deluge of hearings. Even on the run in the middle-of-nowhere, least populated parts of Eastern Europe, he’d heard about Ultron—he was traumatized, not dead. The longer he’s at the Tower, the greater that awareness becomes: he registers the elevated tension every time Tony’s gone, notes the strained tightness around Steve’s eyes and mouth even though he never knows what to say. (This, the emotional aphasia that renders any comfort he might have been able to offer into leaden marbles in his mouth—this may well be the thing he hates most about all of it.) But June transitions them from generalized hearings to threats of charges before the ICC to the distinct, targeted accusations of aiding and abetting fugitives of war crimes. Bucky isn’t remotely perturbed to see his name in those reports; it would have been more noteworthy if he _hadn’t_ been named. It is seeing Natasha’s name printed alongside his on the banner headline for the evening news that shatters the mug in his hand, the breaking ceramic loud as a gunshot in the terse fury rippling through the room.

The noise seems to galvanize the others, at least past the nightmarish silence of catacombs. Bucky falters, staring uncomprehendingly at the fragments on the counter, some of which are no more than dust. “I’m—” he starts to say, but Tony cuts him off before the first syllable is fully out of his mouth.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” His tone is conciliatory, even reassuring; but the tight press of his eyes and lips, the tension wending around his body like a physical thing, belie his ire. It takes conscious effort to push aside the de facto conclusion that Bucky himself is the reason for its presence.

“This is bullshit.” Clint says what they’ve all been thinking, words clipped and rife with harsh consonants. He looks like he’d greatly prefer to put an arrow through the television.

“This— _this_ —is how your country repays its heroes?”

It’s nothing anyone hasn’t said before, repeatedly and vehemently; nonetheless, it bears restating, since they have yet to formulate any better responses. But in their short acquaintance, Bucky’s determined that very little truly riles Thor, and he hasn’t yet heard anything to contradict that. This time, though, there’s a hint of thunder in his voice, a frisson of static arcing through the air in the room, that Bucky thinks ( _hopes_ ) might just be a conjuring of his own imagination. He doesn’t _want_ to know what happens when you piss off a god. No one corrects Thor on the designation—they haven’t been called heroes with any sincerity in too long—if only because they have bigger problems at hand.

“Ungrateful bastards,” Tony growls through clenched teeth, and even Steve’s hand on his elbow does nothing to temper his fury. That Steve is as irate as anyone helps not at all.

The investigations had been, to some degree, expected; in a tragedy of such scale, it would have been a greater aberration had no one been at all interested in establishing cause or even assigning blame. It’s the witch hunt masquerading as legitimate inquiry that they find unreasonable, the way there’s always a handful of voices attempting to place all the blame for everything from Manhattan onward squarely on Tony’s shoulders. Natasha hadn’t even been publicly known—Black Widow was a callsign that went unverified in the media, and her name was even less clear—until SHIELD fell and she shattered the firewall surrounding its secrets, and therefore her own. To spin her history into a knife at her throat is unspeakably manipulative, particularly when she had never tried to deny any of it before Congress, when she’s been working for the proverbial good guys for decades.

“I thought your country didn’t charge people with crimes committed under duress,” Thor says, that nascent threat lingering in his voice.

“They don’t. Well, not really,” Rhodey answers. With a cadre of friends and colleagues scattered through the armed forces’ JAG corps divisions, at the moment he’s the closest thing they’ve got to an in-house lawyer besides JARVIS. “They can be determined _non compos mentis_ or try for an insanity plea, but even if those did succeed with any consistency—” He shoots a mildly apologetic glance at Bucky over his shoulder. “—neither really apply to the Winter Soldier. I can’t remember what we did in the last case of…brainwashing, or programming, or whatever we’re calling it now; I don’t even remember if we ever had one that went to court.”

Only then does the realization strike Bucky that the collective wrath in the room is not for Natasha alone but for both of them. Despite the past weeks, he’s objectively aware it’s an unjust presumption on his part. Still, something akin to relief eases the suffocating tightness in his chest, alleviating the fear he hadn’t consciously processed that they’d simply turn him over to the courts without another thought.

“This is bullshit,” Clint repeats, his tone unchanged. “It’s not like he went around town to massacre random people for fun, and Nat’s a fucking superhero.”

“No,” she says, quiet but no less resolute for it; it’s the first word she’s spoken since the news broke. “I’m not.”

“But—”

“I’m not,” she repeats, cutting Bruce off. “We knew this might happen when I released all of my files. I just expected it to happen sooner.”

“They’re wrong,” Steve says insistently.

She shrugs one shoulder, almost indolent in her complete lack of protest, a lamb brought to slaughter without a fight. It’s a mental image Bucky has a hard time superimposing onto Natalia Romanova—either the cold, calculating operative he once knew, or the fiercely loyal, brilliantly talented _person_ she’s allowed herself to grow into. She is as strange as she is familiar, some sharp edges smoother than he remembers, others harsher and less forgiving, but still dangerous as she ever was. She has never been passive, not until this moment, and it’s unnerving. It transforms the entire situation into something _more_ , something alarming enough to make her patented ruthlessness preferable.

“Are they?” she asks, rhetorically.

“Yes,” Bucky answers, and hearing him speak surprises them, surprises _himself_. “You gave yourself over to a new country and fought for everything it stands for and this is not how they should repay you.”

She merely blinks at him, then says, “We all have to pay for our sins eventually.” Beneath the words lies the implication that he already has. He refuses to accept that, wanting to ask why, if in the short months he’s been back he’s already repaid his debt, she is still in the red despite years of service to SHIELD.

“Well, now is not that time,” Tony interjects sharply, before Natasha can continue or Bucky can voice any of the thoughts churning through his mind. “Did the SVR keep any of the KGB’s files on your programs? FSB? GRU? Some dank hole the Kremlin doesn’t acknowledge exists?” he asks. His attention is divided between them, but the question seems to be largely directed at Bucky.

“They must have,” he says, hedging, “but it’s probably either SVR or GRU, and it’s not going to be anywhere official.”

“Then we go and get them,” Tony says, firm and decisive as if he’d heard nothing past the first three words.

“Tony, I can’t ask you to do that.” Natasha sounds… _drained_ , but Tony simply shakes his head like nothing has changed.

“You aren’t asking, Nat.”

Somewhere in the remote part of his brain that isn’t trying to stave off a panic attack, it occurs to Bucky that he’s really not sure when the two of them became “Tony” and “Nat” instead of “Stark” and “Romanov”. It’s nonsensically reassuring.

“This is a suicide mission,” she replies, all trace of exhaustion abrogated now by a trenchant desperation that sounds too much like “I cannot watch you die because of me”.

“You expect us to just hand you over to be scapegoats since they can’t hang the whole team over Ultron? Fuck no,” Clint retorts, slashing a hand through the air.

“You’ll be walking into a trap,” she snaps. “You think the American IC is bad? Russia’s operates like it was designed by a paranoid schizophrenic during a psychotic break, and that’s _after_ the Soviet Union fell.”

“So come with us,” Sam says like it’s the most obvious solution in the world. “You know them.”

“You’re out of your mind,” she half-growls, exasperated. The look she directs at Steve and Sam both says, _I expected more rationality from you_. “I know they’re still tracking me—or at least they were when they sent Yelena Belova after me—but I haven’t been back to those parts of Russia since the USSR collapsed.”

“So we bring James,” Thor says in a tone so perfectly matched to Sam’s that they sound choreographed.

It takes a beat before Bucky recognizes that Thor’s referring to him: if Bucky still feels like “Bucky” is a mold that no longer quite fits him, “James” is even more discordant. But it’s Thor, and besides, he has more prominent concerns at the moment than nomenclature.

“You what?” is all he manages to say out loud, hoarse and stunned.

Natasha sighs, reaches up to push her hair out of her eyes. “He’s right,” she says, and Bucky snaps around to stare at her in shock. “You’re all idiots and I swear I will not attend your funerals, but if you’re going to do this, he’s right. They won’t have moved—not everything, at least. They won’t expect him to remember anything useful anymore than they thought I would.”

Too staggered to do more than gape at them, Bucky gropes uselessly for words, any words. She’s right: this is, even in the best of circumstances, a suicide mission. Adding him to the equation is tantamount to pulling the pin on a live grenade—and then not leaving.

“Glad we understand each other,” Tony says smoothly.

The withering look Natasha gives him in answer is somewhat undermined by the unmistakable gratitude in her eyes. “We don’t.”

“Enough,” Steve intercedes before the discussion can devolve any further. “Who agrees that we need to preempt this?” He holds his hand up; the rest of the room, sans Bucky and Natasha, follows suit. “Then we’re agreed on that much.”

“We’re missing a fair number of people,” Bruce points out. “Do we want to take the risk of calling them back or letting them know?”

There’s a long moment of awkward half-glances amongst them, in which no one quite meets anyone else’s eye, until Tony says at last, “No,” looking faintly regretful.

“Maria’s standing in for Phil while he and his team are gone,” Natasha adds, slipping into infinitely more familiar professional detachment now that arguing is moot, “but even if she wasn’t we can’t get her involved in this, not at her level—and if she knew, she’d come anyway.”

“Agreed,” Rhodey replies, “and Carol and Sharon both have been scheduled to do this set of guest lectures for the new recruit class since I think April, if not since we opened.”

“Same with Vision and the Maximoffs,” Tony concurs with a sigh. “We’ve been trying to coordinate with the X-Men for months to get some of them down here with Mag—Lehnsherr,” he corrects himself. “Between shared biology and the fact that their powers match the X-Men more closely than ours, that’s gonna be the most useful training they can get. Cancel any of these things now and we might as well post an announcement.”

“Then we go with who we have now,” Steve agrees, a note of his field command voice slipping into his delivery. “I think it’s safe to say this will move quickly, so we need to do the same. Strategy meeting, fifteen minutes—we go silent starting now, no chance of anyone figuring this out while there’s time to intercept us.”

“Meet in the workshop,” Tony says. “Easiest to isolate, best egress access.”

Steve nods, then adds, “This is strictly voluntary. If for whatever reason you do not or cannot come, no one is going to hold it against you.” Slowly, he looks to each of them, as they nod back; he holds Rhodey’s gaze a second longer, but the colonel meets his eyes squarely and dips his chin. When no one makes a move to protest, Steve repeats, “Regroup in fifteen.”

\----------

“Doors here and here are wired with Semtex,” Bucky says once they’ve reconvened downstairs, the workshop under lockdown protocol thorough enough to rival a SCIF. He indicates access points on the hastily drawn map of the compound he’d cobbled together, and while the blank spaces and question marks probably outweigh the substance, it’s more than they could have acquired elsewhere. When overlaid with images from an SI satellite Tony had repositioned, it helps fill in some of the absent geographic details. “Disarm required—whatever the hell you tech people call the multiple modes of ID.”

Tony frowns, then ventures, “Two-factor auth?”

“That.”

“Seems like a bad idea,” Clint says, and Natasha shrugs one shoulder.

“Only if your concern is keeping people alive. Works brilliantly if your first priority is keeping everything inside secure at all costs.”

To that, no one has a reply.

“Shit,” Rhodey says suddenly, tone strangely, deceptive mild. When everyone turns to look at him, he shakes his head. “Sorry, I just realized—no cover of darkness.”

“What are you—” Clint starts to say, then swears. “Fucking Arctic Circle.”

“J, pull sunrise and sunset in Norilsk for today and the next two days,” Tony says, numbers popping up on a display within seconds. “So much for immediate departure. Polar day means we can’t get full dark, but if we go in after sunset we can at least avoid broad daylight.” Turning to look more closely at the display, he snorts after a moment and informs them sarcastically, “Look, one thing’s actually gone in our favor: the 31st is their shortest day of the year.”

Steve reads through the numbers faster than the rest of them, then says, “Then we have between 2347h local time on the 30th until 0241 on the 31st. They’re twelve hours ahead of us; if we want to get there in time to set down and wait we—” He pauses, looks between Tony and Clint. “Full tank and full speed, how fast can the Quinjet get us there?”

Sparing a glance at Clint, who waves a hand at him in a “go for it” motion, Tony replies, “We’ve got alt power sources as well as fuel, should get us there and at least part of the way back. If all the tech holds and we get some extra sunlight, we might even make the round trip. Top speed’s a little better than the F-35 if you floor it, but we’ll fall out of the sky if we do that for five thousand miles.”

“Compared to how we made the flight to Romania?” Natasha asks.

“A little past. We’re bigger but a touch lighter than most fighter jets, which works in our favor, but since setting down someplace and holing up until nightfall is out of the question, we’re going to have to push harder for longer.”

“So our departure time is 0630 at latest.”

Bruce shoots a look at Steve—the one every scientist gets when they see something they’d just _love_ to put under a microscope—but it’s Tony who says, “One of these days we’re going to take a closer look at how exactly you can just do that in your head, it’s creepily fascinating. Right now we have eleven hours to come up with a plan that doesn’t automatically end with all of us dead in the Arctic Circle, and possibly get a few hours of sleep so no one passes out before we can get clear.”

“Easier said than done,” Bruce says dryly, then looks over at Bucky. “What can you tell us about power grid access?”

Bucky hesitates. “I’m not sure. It’s a small industrial town, unless that was an implanted memory, too—”

“It wasn’t,” Tony interjects, and Bucky nods at him gratefully.

“Power was…weird. Sorry, I know that’s not helpful. I assume there had to be an electrical grid somewhere, but I don’t know how or where the building would have accessed it.” Frowning, he peers more closely at the map, more for something to do than because it will help answer the question. “I have a vague memory of people—possibly including me—moving generators.”

Rhodey makes a _hmm_ ing noise, glancing over at Tony. “Odds are pretty high they’d have this place on an isolated grid—not just power, everything. One more way to reduce the chance of detection.”

“For lack of any better options, that’s what JARVIS’s for,” Tony replies. “Regardless of what we come up with, we’ll start running scans when we’re still in the air.”

“What about access?” Sam asks. “Do you have any recollection of people in and out of the facility besides handlers and whatever other regular personnel they had on staff?”

“No,” Bucky answers. “I was unconscious a lot of the time I was there, so that doesn’t mean much, but…” Blowing out a harsh breath, he rakes both hands through his hair. “One of the first things I remembered, after—an actual, complete memory—was a meeting for an assignment. Someone wanted my… _services_.” He all but spits out the word, like it’s poison on his tongue. Then again, he hasn’t ever spoken this much in one sitting about anything to do with the Winter Soldier program and Russia, with the shrinks or Steve or anyone at all including Natasha; perhaps he’s due. “Wherever we were, it wasn’t the same place.”

“How do you—” Steve starts to ask.

“I don’t,” he says, less out of rudeness and more to save his friend the trouble of asking. “I just know, I can’t explain how I do. Same way I know that wasn’t the only time we took assignments away from the facility.”

“It fits, I think,” Natasha offers quietly. “Before I was officially with the KGB, that’s what I remember. If we were taking assignments for a third party, we’d meet them elsewhere, whether they wanted to talk to us or assess our abilities or just be present while we were given our orders.” She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “My memories are no more reliable than his, but that’s consistent, and not something they’d have reason to plant that frequently.”

A beat; then Steve asks, voice too modulated to be unintentional, “No logical reason, or no reason?”

Another beat; then, softer, “No logical reason.”

“What should we expect in resistance?” Thor asks. “Would they keep this facility under guard even now?”

Bucky trades an uncertain look with Natasha, then holds up a hand and tips it back and forth, a universal scale gone haywire under the weight of their questions. “If they had others in the Winter Soldier program when I got out and they kept running them, yes, I think on the order of fifteen guards per shift, plus medical and operational personnel. The problem is I don’t know if anyone else _was_ still in the field. There were other cryostasis pods besides whichever one they put me in, and I’m fairly certain some were occupied. Whether or not that is still accurate is…well, your guess is as good as mine.”

“It’s safe to assume the place is wired, whatever its contents,” Natasha says. “I would bet almost anything this is still an old KGB—well, we’d call it a black site now, I suppose. We’re fond of our ordnance, and in a location buried as deep as our directorates were, we should be looking for every trap and tripwire imaginable. And enough explosives beyond those at the doors to reduce everything in a four-mile radius back to its molecular state.”

“Okay, then what do _we_ want for ordnance?” Clint asks. When Steve frowns faintly at him, he spreads his hands in a gesture encompassing all of them. “Educated guesses are useful,” he says, “but no matter how many questions we ask we’re still going in about as blind as we’ll ever be on an op. Gear and approach are about the only things we _can_ control.”

A moment later, Steve tips his head in Clint’s direction, both apology and acknowledgement. Bucky wonders, with an academic sort of detachment, if his friend picked that habit up from Nat, or the other way around. “Standard outfitting—no insignias—for all of us, assault rifles on everyone who isn’t Tony or Rhodey.” That he doesn’t so much as twitch at his own suggestion despite his personal dislike of firearms speaks volumes. “Grenades—at least two and a flashbang each—and a dozen bricks of C4.”

“We won’t want anything more than small shaped charges on the way in, if that,” Natasha supplies, though no one displays the barest reaction to Steve’s numbers. “On the way out is another thing.”

Steve nods in answer, then asks, “We’ve got, what, four of us with EOD training?”

“Two practical,” Tony replies, motioning at Nat and Bucky, “three if you count me with engineering and JARVIS, and Rhodey knows the ropes, though…” Glancing over his shoulder, he raises an eyebrow at Rhodey, who shakes his head.

“Plenty of drills, no field use. The AI will help, and I’ll take one no question, but if someone else is free let’s not use this op to figure out how well my training took.”

“Fair enough,” Steve says, then motions to Bucky. “Buck, we need to get you some fieldgear.”

Bucky hesitates again, then says, “Don’t arm me, at least not until we’re on the ground.” It’s an irrational request and he knows it: field qualifications are as much a part of his brain as breathing. Even had they not been, he hardly needs weapons to be dangerous. But since he’d been deemed stable by Xavier and medical, he’s mostly resumed being some manner of armed, same as everyone else in the Tower. All the same, it makes him feel a little better for having said it, and precious little else has or will achieve that.

“Raise your hand if you think he’s gonna straight-up murder all of us on the flight out,” Tony says without raising his head from a map display, tone gentle despite the phrasing. No one’s hand goes up, and he looks over at Bucky. “It’s your call—it’s not like we should need to do a whole lot of shooting while we’re in the air—but don’t make it on our account.”

He holds Bucky’s gaze until Bucky finally nods, once. There’s a wealth of subtext on Tony’s face that he doesn’t entirely follow, and while he’s far from certain any faith in his sanity is well placed, the reassurance steadies the unease flitting through his body.

“All right. The approach,” Tony continues. “The jet can pick up heat signatures at four kilometers—two-and-a-half miles—but that’s contingent on the amount of interference and a thousand other things, so bank on about half that range.”

“Tony, Rhodey, let’s slow our approach and put you in the air ahead of the jet when we’re five miles out,” Steve says. “If we have a read on anything at all before that, great; if not, you’ll do the first sweep—and see if you can find a good sniper’s roost. Provided rain or electrical activity won’t set off the presumed explosives, Thor, how would you feel about lighting the place up?”

Thor’s answering smile is more a baring of teeth, an expression that promptly makes all the rest of them infinitely grateful he’s on their side. “It would be my pleasure.”

Almost involuntarily, Steve’s answering grin is every bit as threateningly feral. On Captain America’s face, that look is frankly terrifying; on the scrappy kid from Brooklyn, though, it fits perfectly and Bucky has to suppress a surprised smile. “Then some surveillance and smiting would be welcome, as you see fit.” Motioning to Clint, he continues, “Once we set down, find whatever qualifies as high ground in this flat tundra, watch our six; move in at your discretion.”

“Done.”

“Nat, Buck—it’s your lead. End of the day, you know this place better than we do, instinctually at very least. Sam and I will be flanking you on entrance.” Then Steve looks to Bruce. “Do you have a preference on this?”

Which Bucky thinks is a bizarre thing for a commander to say during a strategy session, until Bruce replies, “I think we need this as under the radar as possible for as long as possible. You bring the Other Guy out and that’s not going to be an option. So I’ll stay with the jet, keep an eye on the readouts and make sure we’re ready to make a fast exit.”

“Done,” Steve replies. “Be our eyes on the ground, we’ll call Code Green if we need you.”

Sometimes, the team makes it easy to forget that they don’t follow typical command structure. This isn’t one of them, and Bucky’s never been so grateful for that in his life.

\----------

_30 July 2015_

Some five hours and thirty-seven minutes later, it is officially the next day, and they have what must be one of the most hastily planned operations in a very long time. Either they’re all going to die spectacularly horrifying deaths, or they’re going to come home with what they need. “In between” is not an option, not this time.

“All right; this is not going to become any better an idea if we keep staring at it,” Tony finally declares, fighting valiantly—and just barely succeeding—to keep the exhaustion from his voice. “Meet in the Quinjet bay at 0600. You have five hours: pack, make your arrangements, take a fucking nap, whatever, but we’re radio silent until we’ve officially cleared US airspace.”

“I’ll say again that we need a damn quartermaster,” Clint says, hopping off the table he’s been perched on for the past two hours, “but you, come with me.” He points at Bucky, then the doors. “Let’s get you some gear.”

“None of the others are due back here for at least two days,” Tony adds before they leave, “so I’m locking down the armory before we leave. You need anything out of there, get it before 0530.”

Tony isn’t at all certain when he became the nominal leader of this suicide mission none of them wants. By all accounts, it should logically be Steve, or even Natasha—basically anyone who isn’t him, who therefore has formal field training and fewer conflicts of interest. But since their lives stopped making sense a few years ago, he’s it, and he’s still trying to decide if he should be flattered or petrified. Mostly he’s drawing a blank, and in the elevator the silence lies heavily upon them all, thick enough to cut with a knife. At the back, where they’re leaning against the rear wall, Steve reaches down and grips Tony’s hand with his, seemingly as much for his own reassurance as Tony’s.

As if by some silent consensus, no one moves to step out until they reach the top floor, where the doors open onto the ramp and stairwell leading to the flight deck. To the right lies their armory, and since Thor happened to walk out first, he keys them in.

“Unless it’s your personal gear, try to avoid SHIELD-issue or StarkTech,” Steve reminds them unnecessarily, reaching for a Galil assault rifle, a case, and a handful of extra mags; ammo of most calibers they have in near literal spades on the jet. “Only the stupidest of analysts would fail to realize we’re the most likely perpetrators, but there’s no need to make it easy for them.”

“So _that’s_ why you keep demanding more stock in here that isn’t SI,” Tony grumbles.

It’s patently untrue—his company had been a weapons manufacturer for decades; they’d had a ridiculous number of weapons in storage for testing and comparison purposes—but it’s an attempt to lighten the mood. It even works, at least enough to get people cracking smiles while they get their gear together.

“A grenade launcher?” Thor asks with a raised eyebrow when Sam pulls down a case.

Sam returns the raised eyebrow with one of his own. “I’m a pragmatist,” he says lightly. “If I’ve got to throw a grenade and being very far away is an option, I’ll take it. I’d bring a fucking MANPAD if I thought we could get away with it.”

“Your logic is valid.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Are you _sure_ a missile would be too obvious?” Rhodey chimes in wryly.

“Boys,” Natasha says, trying not to smile, then looks over at Steve. “Since what you really meant was ‘avoid things that make us easily identifiable’, you want to swap out Clint’s sniper rifle?”

“C’mon, don’t take my SASS,” Clint says, walking through the still-open doorway with Bucky close behind.

Not even bothering to hide his amusement, Rhodey looks over from packing an H&K rifle for Bucky. “This one’s yours,” he says to its recipient, and to Clint, “How many times have you managed to work that one in since your first Army contract?”

Clint just shrugs and grins, removing his rifle case from a top shelf of things they don’t use with any particular frequency. “Don’t hate on the classics, man,” he says, taking an extra bow from a rack of spares for good measure.

“The M110 is less than a decade old, that is not a classic,” Sam declares.

“Says the man with a _flight pack_.”

“Yes, and I’m not attempting to call it a classic.”

“It’s like substituting for a third-grade class,” Natasha says to the ceiling, passing a brace of throwing knives to Bucky on her way out.

“Love you, too!” Clint shouts after her; she flips him off in answer.

It symbolizes the last seven hours fairly well.

They’re in and out in the span of about five minutes: the context of this operation might be both unusual and highly personal, but the outfitting is routine, like a familiar, well choreographed play. By the time they go their separate ways, they still have a little over four hours to go.

As Tony’s securing the armory, Rhodey stops to wait for the others to disperse, leaving them alone with Steve. “What’s up?” Tony asks without turning.

“I just wanted to make sure we’re good,” Rhodey says quietly. Looking to Steve, he adds, “I know I pushed you hard in that meeting, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have your back.”

Steve smiles, faint and fleeting. “I never doubted that. Nat—”

“We had it out,” Rhodey reassures him before he can continue. “We’re solid.” Then he shrugs. “He’s your best friend, and Tony’s mine. I’m not saying that as an excuse, just…an explanation. I won’t apologize for defending my friend, but if our positions were reversed I guess I really don’t know if I’d be able to do it differently.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Steve answers, “but thank you.”

Resting a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder, Tony offers him a smile as faint as Steve’s had been, but no less genuine. “That goes for me, too. I’m glad you’re with us on this.”

Rhodey looks back at Tony, hesitating before offering, “You know I’d be there to watch your six even if the rest of this was still a shitshow, right?”

“After Afghanistan, Siberia should be a cakewalk,” Tony jokes, but there’s warmth in his eyes, and he releases Rhodey’s shoulder to punch him lightly in the arm.

They’ve known one another long enough for Rhodey to read that as what it is: affirmation, friendship, loyalty. Turning back to Steve, Rhodey wordlessly holds out his hand; there’s no pause, no beat of silence, before Steve reaches out to accept the gesture.

Two minutes later, Tony and Steve are in the penthouse, moving things to the foyer. On any other day but this one, it would be both amusing and terrifyingly domestic, the way they maneuver instinctively around one another while they prep, so smoothly it seems innate, rather than an acquired skill of mere months. Case in point: they have all adopted the habit of keeping go bags at the ready, but the fact that Steve had, for all intents and purposes, basically moved into the penthouse never really registered with Tony. Not until he realizes even Steve’s go bag is in their front closet.

When they have nothing left to do—it isn’t as though the process takes any significant length of time, since if they weren’t waiting on nightfall in northern Russia they’d have been in the air within two hours of planning—Tony calls for JARVIS to start coffee. Sleep wouldn’t be an option even if they hadn’t been so wired as to make it impossible, and caffeine is always a functional alternative. In the kitchen, Steve comes up behind him, draping his arms over Tony’s shoulders and resting his cheek against Tony’s hair.

“I know you’re going to tell me not to,” he begins softly, “but thank you.”

Turning, Tony wraps his arms loosely around Steve’s waist and leans into his solid warmth. “Nat’s family,” he answers simply, “and even if Bucky and I hadn’t so much as figured out how to exist on the same continent without killing each other, he’s _your_ family. That's enough for me, especially right now.”

“We’re going to catch so much shit for this.”

“Do you care?”

Steve shakes his head. “All I want is for it to work. If it keeps them off the chopping block, I’ll take whatever SHIELD or whoever else wants to throw at me.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, running his hand along the length of Steve’s spine, the gesture a comfort for both of them.

In tandem with the coffee machine beeping its completion, there’s a knock on the door. Tony turns to pull four mugs instead of two from the cabinet and flaps a hand vaguely at JARVIS. “Let ‘em in,” he says, and when he turns back to the front door, Natasha’s standing there. A year ago, that would have been surprising; today it’s expected.

“You don’t need to do this,” she says without preamble, letting the door shut behind her as she comes forward into the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony sees Steve standing at the far edge of the kitchen counter, well within Natasha’s line of sight, but unobtrusive unless she addresses him. “You _shouldn’t_ do this.”

“Pretty sure that ship’s sailed, Tasha,” he replies, sliding a mug toward her and bracing his hip against the counter.

It’s a measure of how thrown she is that her customary, albeit token, “don’t call me Tasha” never comes. Instead, she slams an open hand down on the back of the sofa, a gesture infinitely more violent in its execution than its result.

“You—” she starts to say, expression tight with exasperation more than anger, but another knock on the door cuts her off.

“Yeah,” Tony says laconically, equally unsurprised when it’s Bucky who steps through the door. Really, they should have just held the strategy session here; it would have saved them all a few extra trips.

“You can’t get yourselves killed for me,” he says, also without preamble.

“For us,” she snaps, vitriolic and irate now.

Like her dismissal of Tony’s “Tasha”, the fact that Bucky doesn’t even seem to notice her tone is testament to the gravity of their circumstances. That, or the extent of Bucky’s healing. Possibly both.

Rather than answer, Tony places a second cup of coffee on the counter—he doesn’t expect either of them to take one, but that’s not the point—and Natasha turns back to face him. “You have taken every single accusation leveled at this team since Sokovia, and just because I still don’t have a fucking clue about why doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s idiotic and unjust. For that alone, you of all people should not be doing this.”

“That’s exactly why I should,” he counters coolly, eyes locked on hers. The media’s Tony Stark—panache and impudence and flippant disregard—is gone, replaced by the Tony Stark even his team rarely gets to see, sober and level-headed and calculating. “There is nothing they can try that they haven’t already, short of following through on their threats,” he points out. “More to the point, they’re going to blame me whether I’m there or not, whether we _succeed_ or not. If they’re going to hang me for something, it’s damn well going to be something I actually did.”

His tone is irrefutable, brooking absolutely no argument, so she turns her attention to Steve. On anyone else, her expression would probably qualify as “beseeching”; on Natasha Romanova it’s given the dignity of “attempted reasoning”.

“Steve,” she tries to say, but he shakes his head, stepping past the counter until he’s level with Tony now that he’s part of the discussion.

“He,” he says, tipping his head in Tony’s direction, “is wrong, and the security councils and committees and whoever else can go fuck themselves.” Behind Natasha, Bucky blinks, nonplussed (Tony wonders if he’s ever actually heard Steve swear since they got Russia out of his head), but Steve plows forward. “But he isn’t wrong about everything else. We are not sending you into the lion’s den alone, Nat, either of you. You made a choice to be here, despite everything it cost you, and I’d be a shitty captain and a worse friend if I decided _now_ that it was too much effort and you were on your own.”

“Steve,” Bucky protests, almost supplicating, but Steve shakes his head sharply to cut him off.

“If there’s blood on your hands, Buck, there’s blood on all our hands,” he says quietly, echoing Sam’s declaration from weeks ago. The answering silence is deafening, and after a moment he crosses the room to where Bucky’s essentially still standing in the foyer. Slowly, he reaches for his friend’s shoulders, hands coming to rest there when Bucky doesn’t jerk away. “If you won’t let us do it for you, let us do it for Nat, for us,” he offers. “You just got back.” The _and I can’t lose you again_ goes unspoken, but he may as well have shouted it from the balcony.

Bucky opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, forcefully enough for the snick of his teeth coming together to be audible. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, he leans forward to rest his forehead against Steve’s collarbone. It’s not entirely a hug, but it’s a passable replica, and he nods, just once.

When Natasha looks back to Tony, he shakes his head before she can speak and closes the distance between them. Though she’d made it farther into the penthouse than Bucky had, she’s still more in the entryway than she is in the living room.

“You have friends here, Nat,” he says, encroaching on her personal space in a way he almost never does, close enough that she has to tip her head back to meet his gaze. “I’ve done the lone gunslinger act, as you well know,” he continues with a wry twist to his lips, “and so have you, but much as I think they’re all off their nut sometimes, we’re a team. No one is saying you can’t fight this alone, just that you don’t—shouldn’t—have to. So unless you kill all of us, you aren’t _going_ to do it alone.”

“Maybe I’ll just bury you all beneath the Tower,” she mutters, but the previous ire is absent from her voice, only a jaded truculence left in its place.

Grinning, Tony points out, “Take too much time, even for you—I mean, do you _know_ how much Thor weighs?” She laughs, abrupt and startled, and he reaches out to lay a hand on her arm, fingers curling around the curve of her bicep. “Taking the political fall isn’t the same as letting them put you in front of a firing squad for things you didn’t do,” he says, a deep conviction—comprehension—bleeding into his voice that he doesn’t bother trying to hide. “But if I’m not allowed to go haring off in the name of sparing the rest of you, neither are you.”

Natasha’s shoulders sag, less in defeat and more from the resignation that comes of accepting that the mountain before you is never going to budge, no matter how hard you push. “You’re all idiots,” she informs the room at large, and Bucky makes a noise of agreement, but Tony’s grin never falters.

He tightens his grip on her arm briefly, tacit understanding underlying an oath, before he releases her. While Natasha doesn’t smile, her nod is accompanied by a renewed, menacing kind of determination in the set of her shoulders and the hard look in her eyes. It’s the best thing any of them could ask for.

\----------

 _31 July 2015_ ; _Норильск, Красноярский край (Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia_

“Next time we decide to blow a secret organization, I vote we pick one in the tropics,” Clint says. The joke is diminished somewhat by the massive yawn that cracks his jaw, despite his only having traded Tony for the pilot’s seat a quarter-hour ago.

Staring out the window as though he can make out anything at all in the swelter of heavy, dark clouds, Thor rolls his shoulders like a wrestler preparing for a fight and says, “I’ve fought in colder places.” When Clint shoots a pointed look over his shoulder, Thor helpfully adds, “Jotunheim.”

“Scratch that of my holiday list,” Sam grumbles, attention firmly on his flight gear.

Like everyone else on the jet, Sam has been doing his level best to keep himself occupied. Though all of their mission flights tend to be some degree of high-octane, this one feels like TATP’s been dropped from a roof. Into a roaring fire. While they all stand at its perimeter. The usual snark and (mostly) good-natured bickering has been supplanted by the tense silence of people with too much on the line. Though sleeping in transit is usually reserved for return flights, anyone inclined to do so now would find it impossible; the tension is catching.

With the exceptions of Tony, Thor, and Bruce, they’ve all been trained to focus (some more extensively than others), have acquired their own methods for getting in the zone and staying there before a field op. As for the other three, Thor had been well-schooled in cognitive multitasking behind diplomatically blank expressions, in addition to whatever it was he’d learned in New Mexico. Tony’s had decades of learning to be a chameleon while being lost in his work, and if he hadn’t been able to do successfully he’d never have made it out of Afghanistan alive. And if Bruce hadn’t found a way to channel his focus, he and a slew of other people would probably have been dead long ago. Natasha and Bucky both have settled into an unnatural stillness, radiating quiet better than statuary; if you didn’t already know they’d had similar training, you would now. Sam and Clint have a tendency to clean their weapons and check their gear, repetitive, routine; unless Clint’s flying, at which point he settles into an almost meditative calm. Steve is nearly always on his feet behind the cockpit, scanning in front of them, and Tony and Rhodey have a proclivity for reviewing plans endlessly. Thor is the only one who appears largely unconcerned, which in itself seems to be his strategy.

Because there is little worse in the field than an operative distracted and on edge, and focusing on the myriad ways in which an operation—especially _this_ operation—can go wrong will do far more than put them on edge. Ideally, they find an abandoned structure at which the security safeguards have long since eroded into feckless relics. Less ideally, they find themselves in a firefight. As for a worst-case scenario, it’s difficult to determine which would be more devastating: the kind of catastrophic confrontation that creates an international incident, or nothing. If Steve were any less certain in the resolve of his team—his friends, and more than that, family by way of spilled blood and shared secrets and trials borne—he might think fear would overrun their control.

As it is, all he or any of them can do is trust in their planning and each other, and hope.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Wheels down in ten,” Clint announces, followed by a collective exhale in the jet. “We hope you enjoyed the flight, any turbulence can and will be blamed on the resident god. The weather in cold and gloomy Norilsk is, at the end of fucking July, a slightly less cold and gloomy 45 degrees. Time to raise some hell.”

“Anything?” Steve asks Tony quietly, and the engineer shakes his head.

“Too far out to tell,” he replies, “but nothing in the city proper is raising red flags.”

Drawing in a breath, Steve turns to face the rest of the team. “We’re landing on top of this thing three minutes after sunset,” he says. This, at least, settling into the role of commander and tactician, is familiar ground, a comforting point of normality in this endeavor that is anything but. “Rhodey, Tony, Thor, you’re in the air in two minutes, you know the drill.”

“We’ll send back the HUD readouts,” Tony replies, stepping toward the rear of the jet as Clint lowers their altitude another two hundred feet.

“Better safe than sorry.”

“Only because you’re paranoid.” Shooting Steve a tight grin, he drops his faceplate with a whir and a click as Rhodey does the same beside him. “All right,” he says, hand on the panel to lower the rear hatch, “like our resident archer said, let’s go raise hell.”

“Or burn it down,” Sam suggests, eyebrows raised in challenge, and Natasha laughs, strained and uncertain.

Ninety seconds later, they’re coming up on the base, converging on it from different directions. “No heat signatures whatsoever,” Rhodey reports back, dropping lower. In the darkness, the black of their armor renders them nearly invisible to all but thermal imaging, and while Rhodey had protested the new suit, Steve’s grateful for it now.

“There’s not much of _anything_ ,” Tony adds, the frown audible in his voice. “This place is pulling standby power, but only just.”

“There is no one approaching; I doubt anyone alive is within five miles of this cursed place,” Thor says, and that’s an appropriate descriptor if Steve ever heard one.

“Keep your eyes open,” Steve replies unnecessarily as Clint sets them down as smoothly as if he were parking a Lamborghini.

When the hatch opens, the cool air feels frigid compared to the heat and humidity of New York City, and Steve draws in a long breath, letting the cold settle into his lungs. Though the sun has set, this close to the Arctic Circle the sky maintains the appearance of early evening, and the sudden wind drops the ambient temperature at least another four degrees, whistling past on the treeless tundra like a discordant note on a broken piano string. But, a hundred paces closer to the base of the largest hill, the skeletal frame of an abandoned disposal plant sits like an oversized gargoyle, right where Bucky said it would be. Unable to help himself, Steve chances a glance at his friend. While his expression is hard and shadowed, eyes distant like he’d shunted all emotion off into a lockbox the moment they landed, he spares the most minute of smiles in Steve’s direction.

Squaring her shoulders, Natasha settles the rifle sling across her body—more from habit than necessity—and steps up beside them, Sam at her back. She looks over to Bucky, who nods, then motions toward her left. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve catches the Quinjet fading as Bruce reactivates the cloaking shield.

“Falcon, you’re with me,” she says, voice so low she’d be inaudible without the comms. “Cap, you’re with—the Soldier.” While the hesitation before Bucky’s codename is noticeable only to those who know her well enough to read her, it occurs to Steve then that in all their planning they’d left a fairly glaring omission. “Move.”

The thing about working alongside highly skilled people is, provided they aren’t all vying for command, the seamless efficiency with which they operate. Sam and Natasha are utterly silent on the thin grass and loose soil, ghostly silhouettes rendered nearly invisible against the environment. Opposite them, Bucky heads right, Steve at his flank; for a moment, the déjà vu is so acute it hurts. Steve could swear they’re back in Germany or the Alps with the Commandos. Then it passes—he’s a professional; if he’s going to break he can do it later—because crossing flatland is risky enough when you’re in possession of all your faculties, and it’s outright suicidal when you’re not. After three minutes of cursing whoever had decided on the location for this base, they reach the main entrance in ground-level mirrors of the others’ flight paths.

“You guys are the only things moving out here,” Clint says in their ears from his position prone at the lee of the hill closest to the jet. (The problem with open tundra is, among other things, that a sniper with a bow and arrow is just not a viable option. A sniper, period, isn’t really a viable option, but they’ll make do with what they can get). Tony and Thor land soundlessly beside the entrance, Rhodey and Sam swinging around to cover the angles Clint can’t.

“Let’s keep it that way,” Tony says briskly. “I’m picking up wiring around the doorframe, but no detcord, and no trip wires across the entrance. That seems too easy.”

“Pressure plates?” Natasha asks.

“I think they built this place with lead walls—I can barely see around the joists—but nothing on this side, no.”

In place of answering, she steps forward, letting her rifle hang loose in front of her as she picks the lock. It takes her the space of three seconds, and when she stands back to a host of raised eyebrows, she shrugs. “Sometimes they got lazy: why spend a couple thousand dollars on a locking mechanism that looks like something out of Gringott’s when you can wire the place to high heaven. Smart? No. Arrogant? Absolutely.”

“A Harry Potter reference, really?” Sam says.

“Shut up, it was a nice lock,” she grumbles, stepping back and away from the doorway.

Taking her place, Tony nods at Steve. They’d decided on a soft entry—it had been one of the few easy decisions to be had in that strategy session. No point in getting through the doors only to run facefirst into a pile of explosives, or alert any guards sleeping through their shifts by knocking the door off its hinges. But in case the Russians weren’t feeling particularly welcoming, Tony in the suit is likely to take the least damage, which is to say, “not die”. Steve pushes the door open, then steps back, rifle coming up to cover Tony’s blind spots as Natasha does the same on his other side.

Nothing happens.

“Well,” Tony says over the comms after a second has ticked by, then another. “The lack of blowing me up is nowhere near as reassuring as it should be.”

Like the building in Suceava where they’d first found Bucky, this one is lit on the ground floor only by the daylight—moonlight?—coming through the windows. Unlike the building in Suceava, these windows are the size of cinderblocks, and the space before the entrance ends ten feet out in walls and hallways. If you didn’t know any better, it would almost look like a normal plant, neglected for a decade or two until its interior had fallen into disrepair.

“Hawkeye, Iron Patriot, come on down,” Sam says from the entrance he and Thor are covering, nodding over his shoulder at Steve and Bucky to continue in.

Natasha steps past Tony, the narrow beam of her flashlight catching on the edges of doorways. Pointing with two fingers, she gestures for Steve and Bucky to go right while she and Tony head left, systematically clearing the rooms. It’s token, since the internal walls aren’t shielded at all, and no one has registered a hint of motion since the jet landed. Yet the building creaks ominously in the wind, and training insists to all of them that the day they don’t clear a floor is the day someone comes at them from behind with a machete and a machine gun.

“We’re clear,” Bucky says as he steps back out of the last room.

“Nothing’s coming up behind us,” Clint says, bow once again in hand as he, with Thor, Rhodey, and Sam, step into the hallway.

Bucky nods in acknowledgement, then tips his head at the rear corridor. “Elevator shaft should be through there, on the right.”

Pairing off behind Bucky and Natasha, they make their way back. Here, enough of the walls are intact that it feels as deep into night as they actually are, and they dim their flashlights to avoid blinding themselves by accident. The elevator shaft stands right where Bucky said it would be, hollow and empty like the gaping maw of some behemoth waiting to swallow them whole. The elevator car, on the other hand, assuming there ever was one, is nowhere to be seen, and though the cables remain suspended in the shaft, they’re covered in a patina of rust and grit. When Steve reaches out to test one, the layers crumble beneath his touch like sand, and he shakes his head—they _might_ support Natasha’s weight, but that’s a risk he’s not willing to take. Instead, he tosses a length of rope at Bucky and motions for him to secure it to one of the concrete pillars, clipping the other end to a carabiner at his belt. It’s a half-assed harness that would make experienced climbers cringe and hardly advisable, but their gear will support it. At the moment, that’s the only factor he cares about.

Steve descends first, walking himself down the wall to minimize the thump of his boots against the metal, and Tony projects enough light to make it marginally less of a death trap. After an equivalent depth of at least two floors, Steve reaches the bottom and tugs lightly on the rope, signaling for them to draw it back up. It is pitch black and silent as tombs this deep, and a good ten degrees colder if not more. Impatience tells him to move, that the others will catch up; objectivity and training tell him that would be criminally stupid. So he sets his jaw, forces himself to heed the latter, and keeps the opening of the elevator shaft covered as Natasha descends, followed by Bucky, Clint, and Sam. Thor and Rhodey come down next, not bothering to rappel. Tony brings up the rear with the rope coiled in his hand, handing it off to Steve as he passes and holding up a fist to stop the others from proceeding forward.

“JARVIS, scan,” he says, stepping to the edge of the shaft to let the projected light penetrate the darkness in front of them.

Out of habit as much as necessity, Steve sweeps his gaze across whatever is illuminated, realizing that they've come to the entrance of what can only be described as a massive underground warehouse-style bunker. This far north and this deep into the earth, the walls are overlaid with the dull, faintly crystalline sheen of permafrost. Climate change might be melting it elsewhere, even in Norilsk itself, but here it seems to remain a constant, a slice of the world isolated from reality. Below its icy plating, the concrete has been painted over with what looks like an 80s propaganda poster. Cracks almost deep enough to qualify as fissures mar the faded image, but the girl (woman?) depicted stares back at them even now, her face eerily frozen in time and her smile still falsely, forcedly bright.

“Homey,” Sam observes, giving the visible part of the room the same sharp once-over Steve had just done. “What next?” he asks, just as Tony makes a curious, puzzled sort of sound that immediately catches Steve’s attention.

“What is it?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” he replies after a second, which, coming from him, is a more disturbing statement than if he’d yelled, “Grenade!”. Tilting his head just to the right and upward, the way he only ever does when something particularly curious comes up on his HUD, he continues. “These readings don’t match up. From overhead, we had nothing. This place was as good as a ghost town—no thermal shifts beyond standard changes for ambient temp of building material or depth; no radio interference; no signals at all.

“Until now. _Something_ keeps registering at the edge of JARVIS’ field of perception, but it’s so inconsistent I can’t track it, much less ID it.”

“It’s the depth,” Bucky replies. “It’s also shielded—it may not be lead between us and the ground floor, but it probably has the same effect on your ability to get a read. This place was excavated back when the land up here was still basically frozen through. There’s a foot of concrete and steel between us and the earth, and they did something to keep this specific site as frozen as it was when they found it.” He shrugs one shoulder, blue eyes distant if no less alert. “Damned if I know what it was, but nothing got in or out unless they wanted it to.” Reaching out, he rests his metal hand on the wall, tentative like he's approaching an angry Doberman and not an inanimate slab of concrete. Beneath his fingers, the ice and paint flake away.

“See, this is why I hate communist regimes,” Clint mutters, almost petulantly.

Bucky doesn’t seem to hear him. It’s only when Steve steps up next to him that he breaks his gaze from the wall, offering a tight smile that makes a valiant effort at encouragement.

Then he pulls back and drives his fist through the concrete with a crack that seems to rival Thor’s thunder in the empty, cavernous silence. Chunks of the wall and dust fall at his feet, and while the others are still staring in surprise, Bucky works his fingers beneath the pieces still clinging to the wall. That’s when Steve sees the underside: coppery red, the color of old, rusted metal. “Concrete and steel,” Bucky had said; but he hadn’t said where it ended. Pulling his shield from his back and settling it over the magnets on his sleeve, Steve slams it into the wall like he’s delivering an elbow to an opponent’s throat. This, too, echoes in the space around them, and the fissures spread up the wall.

“Cap.” Tony lays a hand on Steve’s shoulder, briefly. “No point in ringing the doorbell anymore than we already have,” he says and motions Rhodey forward.

Bucky and Steve both pause, and it seems as though at least one of them is going to argue. But then they step aside, and the remainder of the wall crumbles almost silently away in the wake of the controlled beam of their repulsors.

“Hidden doors are so much less exciting these days,” Tony remarks, placing his hands against the frame where steel meets concrete.

Opposite him, Rhodey does the same, the metal groaning under their combined force before it finally gives, twisting apart to reveal a dark expanse of hallway extending beyond. Steve and Bucky pull the remains aside—it isn’t as though they’ll be able to _hide_ the gaping hole where the wall used to be.

“Okay,” Tony says after a moment, “this is new.”

He means it literally: the wide hallway is, if not brand new, certainly newer than the remainder of the building. Steve counts five doors on the left, four on the right, and a panel of visibly reinforced steel at the far end.

“Anything?”

Tony sounds faintly surprised when he replies, “Yeah, and you’re not gonna like it This place is wired like a fucking MIT grad on spring break.”

“I thought the power grid was as good as dead,” Natasha says. She’s poised like a leopard ready to pounce for a killing blow, weight on the balls of her feet and just barely dropping her center of gravity, shoulders loose and head on a swivel. They all are, for that matter, falling by muscle memory into more standard mission readiness instead of the death-trap anticipation of before.

“It was,” Tony answers, the hallway lighting blue for a moment as he runs a second scan. “We activated it—the standby power I mentioned before? The way this place is set up, I bet anything it could run on that for half a century. Whatever the switch is, I’d guess we tripped it either in the elevator shaft or when we cracked this door.”

“Explosives?” Sam asks, and there’s a pause before Tony answers.

“Yes and no,” he says, “which makes no sense. There’s Semtex literally set into the walls, but nothing’s activated.”

“It’s set for remote detonation?” Natasha says, only half a question, but Tony shakes his head.

“Not unless the detonator is psychically controlled.” A millisecond after the words are out of his mouth, he freezes. “They don’t have that kind of tech, right? Tell me they don’t have that kind of tech.”

Bucky obliges: “They don’t have that kind of tech, or at least not that I ever saw, either in R&D or deployment.”

“It’s theoretically possible, I suppose,” Natasha hedges, “but no one’s intel suggests they have that capability.”

Blowing out a breath of relief, Tony says, “Good. In which case, like I said, it makes no sense. Adding to the good news, there are motion detectors concentrated at the far end.”

“So naturally, what we want is going to be back there,” Sam says, with an exasperated roll of his eyes. “Any way to disable them?”

It’s Bucky who answers, shaking his head. “Not without being noticed. Standard motion detectors, yes, but if these are still live it’s a safe bet an alert will go off somewhere if the connection’s cut, if it hasn’t already.”

“And the likelihood there are hidden detonators in this… _place_?” Thor asks. If there’s a way for him to express any further distaste through that one word, no one still living knows what it is.

“High,” Natasha replies, distaste laced heavily through her voice. “And even if there aren’t, if someone’s monitoring this place, we won’t have a lot of time to bypass that door and find what we need.”

“Well.” Lips curling into a dangerous grin, Clint shifts his grip on his bow. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I haven’t had a good old-fashioned fight in ages.”

Shrugging laconically, Sam offers, “Not that I necessarily agree with Trigger Happy over here, but it’s not like we didn’t expect worse.”

Natasha hesitates, a disturbance in motion so minuscule it’s nearly unnoticeable, and then she turns to Steve. “Your call, Cap,” she says, anxiety flitting through her eyes, there and gone in a millisecond.

With a smile he hopes conveys support, conveys the keeping of a promise, he replies, “We aren’t leaving here until we get what we came for.” The gratitude on her face is as ephemeral as the anxiety, and he motions ahead. “Your op.”

“Clear the floor,” she orders. “Give the last door a ten-foot berth.”

They move through the rooms much as they had upstairs: in pairs; rapid, thorough, precise; and checking for people as much as traps or weapons. For a few moments, the only sounds are the low thump of combat boots on cement, the soft brush of the material of their uniforms, and calls of, “Clear!” But the rooms are empty except for the occasional table or desk or chair, and a handful of empty filing cabinets, as though someone had moved out in a hurry. Scans of the walls confirm Tony’s initial assessment: an abundance of explosive ordnance, but no detonators anywhere. (This, too, isn’t nearly as reassuring as it should be.)

As they converge on the far end of the hall, Clint hangs back a few paces, breaking the silence with the faint _thwwwp_ of an arrow’s flight before it embeds itself in the motion detector. Turning, Steve makes an attempt at a disapproving expression, but Clint only shrugs unapologetically and draws another arrow. Before he can fire it at the second motion detector, Thor fries it with a bolt of lightning so controlled it should be impossible.

“However much time we have left, it’s limited,” Natasha says, then looks at Tony. “Anything?”

He shakes his head. “Not on our side, but this is as shielded as the framework upstairs,” he says, frustration weighing heavily in his tone and likely aimed as much at himself as at their nameless opponents.

“Eh,” Rhodey says. “The time for smart decisions was a while ago—and besides, when has that ever stopped you?” He says it like a challenge, but fondly, then shakes his head. “ _Any_ of you.”

In spite of the tension, in spite of the potentially cataclysmic consequences looming before them regardless of whether they succeed or fail, the amusement sparks. Sam cracks first, trying his best not to laugh and failing as he motions at Steve and says, “This guy jumped out of a plane without a chute. ‘Nough said.”

“You brought _me_ here,” Bruce says over the comms, dry as a desert, and even Bucky can’t quite stifle his laughter. On the rare occasions when Bruce accompanies them but stays out of the field, he’s usually silent unless otherwise required, and they can all count on one hand the number of times he’s willingly joked about his alter ego.

“You two—” Steve motions to Rhodey and Tony. “—take out the hinges. Thor, care to give me a hand?”

He holds out his shield, and Thor grins. “With pleasure,” he says, and as Rhodey and Tony destroy the framework, he strikes the shield with his hammer, the concussion blast knocking the door inward. Even at a fraction of the potential energy, it still leaves them with a massive hole in the wall.

Nothing explodes.

No klaxons begin blaring.

Frankly, it’s almost disappointing.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Natasha says, brushing a hand across Steve’s shoulder in silent thanks as she steps past him.

She and Bucky take point, sweeping wide angles with the muzzles of their rifles, but by the time the others begin to cross the threshold Bucky’s already calling it cleared. Clint finds the light switch on his way in, and a moment later the fluorescent tubes overhead are humming and flickering to life. This room is larger than the others, covering the width of the hallway as well as the rooms on both sides and extending at least sixty feet deep. But it’s an open floor plan, without so much as cheap office pool wall partitions or support pillars; unless someone is hiding in a file cabinet drawer or a computer screen, the place is as empty as the rest of the building.

Packed shelves line the left side of the room, still overflowing with books and loose papers, while enormous servers lie beneath layers of dust against half the right wall, the other half occupied by a row of old CRT displays and desktop cases. The far wall is lined with long tables of lab equipment under just as much dust as the servers—it’s not clear when the room was last in use, but it clearly hasn’t been updated in decades. But the thing that occupies the bulk of their attention is at the center of the room, where a metal table is bolted to the floor like a parody of an inept horror film, complete with rusted wheels and worn leather straps with heavy metal buckles.

To the left of the entrance, where he’d been standing when the lights came on, Bucky remains frozen, eyes fixed on that table.

Coming up beside him, Steve says, voice even and off the comms, “Buck.”

Bucky exhales harshly, nostrils flaring with the force of it, before he looks away. “They took the rest of the equipment,” he says, voice cracking mid-sentence. “There used to be more, a chair and—” Abruptly, he cuts himself off, gritting his teeth as anger flares in his eyes, uncensored and sharp as broken glass. He draws a hand harshly across his mouth, as though he can dismiss the memories with the motion. “I don’t care what we find, I want this place to burn.”

Rather than answer, Steve nods, because this is not the place for his grief, for his fury, even if he feels it like a tangible thing, burning and twisting beneath his skin. He knows as well as the rest of them that they will likely never find everyone who took part in running the Winter Soldier project, assuming they find any of them at all. He knows that Bucky will never get the kind of closure—or perhaps catharsis is a better word; closure is a myth—he deserves. But if they can find something here, if they can leave a smoking crater where this building used to stand, maybe that will be a step in the right direction.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, terse and too fast, then moves toward the shelves, steps purposeful and driven.

Natasha steps into the place Bucky had just vacated, her back to the room, close enough for their shoulders to brush. “Tony says we’re officially blown,” she tells Steve quietly. “According to JARVIS, the satellites are picking up movement forty miles out. Clint’s heading back topside to get us eyes.”

With effort, Steve forces himself to stop contemplating the way the freckling across the table’s surface looks like old blood. “Good,” he says tightly as he meets Natasha’s eyes, and she smiles slowly, a shark scenting blood and wounded prey. “Means we’re in the right place—there’s something here they don’t want us to find. You and Bucky keep looking; grab hands as you need them, and the rest of us will buy you time.”

“I know,” she answers before she turns to target the shelves on the opposite end from Bucky.

There’s a wealth of subtext in those two syllables, a level of implicit trust—of _faith_ —that stands in stark contrast to the nightmare that is the room around them. No matter how hard she’d tried to keep them away from this place, the extent of her conviction in this team says more than anything she could have ever spoken aloud. This more than anything pushes Steve back into motion: this horror is his to witness, not own, and if she and Bucky can push through it, he has no excuse. So he brushes his fingers across Bucky’s elbow as he passes, hoping to convey encouragement as well as remorse for the years they’d both lost, and his friend catches his eye and nods in answer.

Tony’s standing just outside the door, and he snaps his faceplate up as soon as he sees Steve approaching. Sam and Rhodey are on guard on the far side of the broken wall, and when Steve raises an eyebrow, Tony answers his unspoken question, also off the comm channel: “Thor went up with Clint.”

Steve nods. “This place needs to go as soon as we’ve finished here.”

“Easy enough,” Tony says, not missing a beat, “even if they hadn’t put enough Semtex in this place to level a small town. Shaped charges directed toward the walls in the sub-basement levels, and some quick wiring of the rest, will get this thing to crater in on itself.”

He says all of this as though he’s either spent a great deal of time planning how to make such a thing work or he came up with it on the spot, Steve honestly can’t tell. Regardless, it’s strangely comforting, and Steve breathes fractionally easier.

“Thanks,” he says, eyes fixed on the twisted ruin of metal on the floor that used to be a door. “How long until we’ve got company?”

“By now, forty minutes, tops. Probably more like thirty with the terrain—most of it’s unpaved but flat, but about eight miles out they’ll have to slow down unless they’re in the mood for a head-on collision with a tree or the bottom of a valley. Sat imaging’s got seven armor-plated vehicles at last count, so probably minimum thirty-some personnel incoming, though strangely nothing in the air.” He shrugs dismissively, a gesture accompanied by the faint mechanical whir of the armor. “We’ve got enough firepower to do some damage if they’ve got a stealth helo or whatever coming up on us. Not like this wasn’t expected. Russia’s even less forthcoming about its secrets than we are.”

Steve snorts. “Bucky and Nat are going to comb through all this as fast as humanly possible; we need to hold these guys off.” He tightens his grip on the rifle’s sling. “This’ll probably get ugly.”

“And we’ll win,” Tony says easily. When Steve shoots him a sharp look, he just grins. “We’ve got a better reason to fight.”

“Yeah,” Steve answers after a moment, blowing out a long, slow breath. “We do.” He grants himself exactly ten seconds to get his head on straight, to push the emotions down and away. Then he squares his shoulders and heads for the the entrance, switching his comm back on to transmit. “Hawkeye, you in position?”

“Locked and loaded, Cap,” Clint replies. “Thor’s overhead; if there’s aircraft incoming, he’ll see it, probably take it out before we even notice it’s there.”

“Good. Widow and the Soldier need time; we’re going to give it to them. Iron Patriot, you’re the buffer: nothing gets past you down here. Falcon, you’re with me at the access point; Iron Man, can you set the charges down here?”

“Done and done.”

“Meet us topside when you’re done.”

They’re moving before he’s even done speaking, Rhodey leaving his post long enough to give Steve a lift up the elevator shaft. When they step outside the main doors, the wind is howling worse than before, far stronger than the breeze that’s considered average wind speed for a Norilsk July. Given the creaking protestations of the building and the sharp taste of ozone in the air, Steve’s fairly comfortable attributing that one to Thor, particularly when snow begins to fall. This, too, is not regionally unusual, but the heft of the snowfall is.

“Thor, anything?” Steve asks as they make for the base of the hills, effectively surrounding the front of the building.

The twilight is deep enough to grant them some measure of cover while they settle into place to wait, but Steve’s particularly grateful that they’re on comms built to withstand the electrical activity Thor generates. If they weren’t, there’s no way anyone would be able to hear one another over this wind without shouting loudly enough to announce their presence to everyone in a twenty-mile radius.

Landing at Steve’s right with the unnatural grace of a god, Thor hunkers down beside him and says, “There is movement a short distance from here. Shall I intercept them?” He sounds positively gleeful at the prospect, and Steve almost— _almost_ —feels bad about their opponents’ futures. The sensation doesn’t last long.

“How far out?”

“Four klicks and closing,” Clint replies.

The hill by which they’d landed the jet is relatively low as hills go, but it’s still taller than the building, and he’s back at his original perch from their approach, lying prone at its apex and doing a surprisingly effective job of blending into the tundra despite his lack of a ghillie suit. The position also conveniently provides a clear sightline to the only usable vehicle entrance. Sam glances over at Steve from where he’s crouched about twenty yards away, motioning upward, but Steve shakes his head— _not yet_.

“Call it at one, Hawkeye,” he says instead. “Whether or not they know we’re the ones waiting for them, spreading us out only helps them.”

“Let’s not do that,” Rhodey suggests.

“No point making it easier on them,” Tony concurs. “I’ll be up in five.”

So they wait.

It’s hardly the longest wait they’ve ever endured—to the contrary, it’s probably one of, if not _the_ shortest. But the seconds drag interminably by, and if Thor wasn’t somehow providing them some manner of protection from his own storm, they’d be fighting as well the seeping cold that to them has no place in midsummer. When Tony emerges, he flies up to land lightly on the roof, disappearing behind something that looks like but probably isn’t a chimney.

And finally, _finally_ , Clint says, “Got a clear visual—one klick.”

“Light it up, Thor,” Steve says quietly.

Grinning, Thor swings Mjölnir faster and faster, the air crackling with static electricity. He pushes off from the ground, the wind changing direction to surround him at the eye of a funnel, which is Sam and Tony’s cue to get airborne. There isn’t so much as a boulder for Steve to use as hard cover—again, damn the location scout or whoever had placed this base to the twenty-fifth level of hell—so he sets his shield into the ground in front of him and brings the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. He might prefer a different method, but they need time and efficiency, and close-quarter combat won’t give them that, not this early.

As the roar of diesel engines draws closer, Clint says, “Thor, hit the one in the lead. I’ve got dibs on the rearguard.”

Flying an arc over the building, Tony scolds mildly, “Boys, don’t fight. There’s more than enough communists for everyone.”

The lead vehicle in the chain of angular, Humvee-esque…well, tanks, really, screeches to a stop over Bruce’s casual protest of, “Technically not really Communists. Officially.”

“Semantics,” Sam retorts as the first man emerges, in full tactical assault gear and wielding an honest-to-god Kalashnikov. Apparently defying stereotypes is not on their list of priorities. Then, switching to a broadcast channel, Sam offers a warning. “I don’t suppose you’ll listen if we tell you to turn around before we shoot you.”

It’s mostly a rhetorical question, but he receives a crack of gunfire in answer from one of the other vehicles.

Well. They tried.

The soldier makes it exactly two steps before Thor strikes, and for a moment the world echoes with the roar of thunder and goes blindingly white in the brightest flashbang ever deployed. The engine manages an unnatural, mechanical squeak of protest before it gives out in a pitiful mimicry or Thor’s thunder, black smoke pouring from beneath the hood. It’s enough to cover the screaming of its occupants, and Steve takes out the tires on the following two vehicles before sliding his rifle beneath the Quinjet’s cloaking: it’ll be there if he requires it, and the only person who will be able to access it is Bruce. Normal SOP would say that’s a terrible security decision, but they’re a far cry from normal, and as impromptu gun safes go, the Hulk and the jet’s limited weapons capabilities probably beat Fort Knox.

Breaking into a run, Steve closes the distance between his position and the opposing force at top speed. They’re distracted enough by the clamor and chaos and smoke that they don’t see him until it’s too late and he’s smashing into the driver, the only survivor of that first car.

“Cap, go right!” Sam shouts, and Steve rolls over the hood of the second vehicle without missing a beat, pulling his shield over himself moments before a grenade lands squarely beneath the fourth, tossing it skyward before gravity reclaims it.

Almost simultaneously, the follow car goes up in a blast of light and sound. “Boom,” Clint says, grimly satisfied. “Gotcha.”

That leaves four of the vehicles still mobile, lurching to avoid the wrecks of the others, and Steve launches himself onto the roof of one, smashing his shield downward through the windshield. This tank, too, comes to a screeching halt with panicked, furious shouting emanating from within. Two of the men in back are quick enough that they’re out the doors before the Humvee has fully stopped. Both of them level rifles at Steve’s head, and he has a split second to grab his shield and roll forward down the hood. But the shots he’s expecting never come, and when he comes to his feet the two soldiers are on the ground, Tony overhead with both hands extended.

The glow of the repulsors is still fading as he asks, “Cap?”

“Good,” Steve replies, and throws his shield, kneecapping another soldier and closing the distance to introduce his face to Steve’s fist. He falls limply to the ground, unconscious, and Steve pauses long enough to disarm him, bending the muzzle of the rifle back on itself.

He hates the body count they’re going to leave behind—they all do, if the black humor in their voices and the grim darkness in their eyes is any indication—and wishes they had a way to simply put all of them out of commission long enough for the team to get out of range. Because this isn’t a war zone, and as far as they know these men are soldiers with orders, men with families, not the masterminds of the Winter Soldier program; if anyone deserves to die for this, it isn’t the soldiers coming at them now. But they _don’t_ have a better option, so they’ll have to settle for the few they can avoid outright killing, even if none of them are remotely certain that’s a mercy.

“How many more?” he asks, using the closest car as cover.

“Bad news is they’ve apparently got cloaking tech,” Sam says from overhead, spinning midair and dive-bombing a lone gunman short-sighted enough to leave the cover of his vehicle. “Worse news,” he continues as he drops that same gunman from twenty feet in the air, “is there are five more coming around from the south. And they have a tank—a real one, not whatever the fuck these are.”

The changing wind heralds Thor’s new direction, and he declares, “That one’s mine.”

“No contest here,” Sam answers, then drops onto the roof of one vehicle with an impact hard enough to bow the steel inward. Its passengers have time to crack open a door before he pulls the pins on two grenades and tosses them inside.

He’s airborne again before the detonation comes, expression hard and grim, letting the force of the explosion propel him upward. Tony joins him a beat later, and whatever he says or does lasts less than a second, but it gets him a terse nod accompanied by something like gratitude.

“Thor, eyes on the other party?” he asks, heading south as Steve almost matches his pace on the ground.

In answer, an explosion lights up the still-falling snow like tumultuous fairy lights.

“Never mind, think I can track you.”

“Save some for us,” Clint protests, firing three arrows into the second group.

“If you hurry,” Thor says with a grunt, and only instinct and sheer dumb luck have Steve rolling left before a smoking piece of what used to be a tank crashes into the space he’d occupied a half-second before.

He makes for a handful of men who’d managed to emerge from their vehicles. They barely have time to look bewildered at his sudden approach before he smashes shield-first into them, bones snapping beneath the force of the assault. Two more fall to arrows at perfect center mass, and another drops to his knees with three of Sam’s blades embedded in his chest. Steve sends his shield at the follow car, and the driver swerves in response as the shield ricochets upward into Sam’s hands. Sam throws the shield back, knocking the rifle from another soldier’s hands just in time for Steve to launch that soldier right into another oncoming vehicle with a single punch to his abdomen.

Over the next seven minutes, the rest fall easily under a combination of Clint’s arrows, Thor’s lighting, Sam and Steve’s precision strikes, and Tony’s repulsors. Steve kneels to brace the shield against the solid strike of Thor’s hammer, the generated force propelling the last tank right into the side of the building; and Tony sets Clint’s arrow for the last soldier on fire midair. Then the only sounds left are the crackle and hum of burning metal and the roar of the wind, which begins to abate as soon as the last body crumples to the ground. They’re all out of breath, and he reaches up to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. The air smells of ash and blood, but the chaos has begun to quiet, and he does his best to ignore it. They’d been outnumbered twelve to one, and their options in the grander scheme of things were relatively limited.

“Any more surprises?” he asks.

Coming down to land beside him, Tony shakes his head. “That seems like the last of them, at least for now.”

“Whatever’s in there—” Clint motions over his shoulder at the building as he approaches. “—is important enough to merit this many people this quickly. As soon as they don’t check in, assuming no one already managed to radio back to HQ, they’ll be coming again and they’ll hit harder.”

“Agreed,” Steve says, swinging his shield overhead and settling it across his shoulders. “Thor, Iron Man, be our eyes in the sky. We’ll check in with the others and see how fast we can get out of here before the reinforcements show.”

“Or we cause an international incident,” Sam adds.

Clint just snorts. “So it’s basically another Monday.”

Sadly, he’s not entirely wrong.

“I hope those explosions weren’t for us.”

Steve lets out a sharp exhale of relief at the sound of Natasha’s voice, her dry humor audible over the disruptive static of the comms.

“Just some welcome fire,” Steve says, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. “Sitrep?”

There’s a weighty pause before Natasha says, “We didn’t find what we expected. But we found enough, and if there’s nothing stopping us we’re ready to head out.”

Every member of the team seems to breathe more easily with those words, and while Steve doesn’t let his guard down—none of them do; none of them will be _able_ to until the scent of burning metal and bloody snow has become a thing of the past—but he allows himself one moment of blind, pure hope. Then he straightens his spine, again pushing everything except his surroundings away to be dealt with when this is done.

“You heard Widow—evac in five. Let’s not give this country any more reasons to hate us.”

“Think that ship’s sailed,” Tony drawls, flying a precise circle overhead.

Hours later, when they’re somewhere in European airspace, Bucky catches his eye from across the jet and mouths, “Thank you.”

Steve nods, smiling, and lets that nascent hope rise up again.

 

**viii. blood is running deep (sorrow that you keep)**

_3 August 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

It’s a nonsensical habit.

Anywhere else in the world that wasn’t a military base or law enforcement HQ—or tied to the mob, or drug dealers, or terrorists, etc., etc., ad nauseam—it would have been outright unnerving and attracted enough attention to merit comment within a day, if not hours. In Avengers Tower, it takes them over a month.

Almost everyone in residence, or at least everyone who does any sort of fieldwork for SHIELD, is some manner of armed at any given moment. Of greater relevance, perhaps, is the fact that they are all more than sufficiently dangerous _without_ the addition of weapons, from Steve, who’s a walking blunt force trauma instrument on his worst day; to Clint, who can knock out an attacker with anything that happens to be handy—a spoon, a penny, whatever, it’s not as though he’s not picky.

Plus, their building is operated and maintained by an AI with more security countermeasures than the Pentagon. If they’re attacked, their home is actively participating in the defense, and their enemies tend to find that disconcerting enough to buy them some time.

The unintended side effect of all of this, then, is that Bucky’s habit of leaving a handgun or combat knife out in the open—always within someone else’s reach—only registers at the periphery of their awareness. It’s something he does only when he’s alone in a room with someone else—any more people than that and he’s surrounded by enough skill and brute force to call it safe, if only by their admittedly skewed standards. It’s probably half the reason they don’t catch it sooner. Clint was the first to even acknowledge it, over two months after Bucky first arrived: by then, he’d been cleared by the battery of trusted professionals, and there was an unspoken rule to living at the Tower that if you _could_ contribute to its defense, you did. It had happened in the common room, where Clint was at the kitchen island poring over his tablet when Bucky walked in. Shortly thereafter, there was an H &K within arms’ reach—his, not Bucky’s, since Bucky was now conveniently on the other side of the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee.

“You know, these things are pretty hard to break with coffee, even if it is that battery acid tar Stark sometimes ends up with,” Clint had said absently, attention more on his tablet than either Bucky or the gun. “And if you plan on cleaning that in the kitchen, we don’t have a kit up here. Also Phil might kill you for getting gun oil and GSR everywhere.”

The fact that Phil was almost never _at_ the Tower despite technically having a floor there was beside the point.

Bucky had just blinked at Clint, then looked over at the gun like he hadn’t realized he’d put it there. “Right,” he’d said at last, but he’d left it where it was and taken his coffee over to the sofa.

If they had kids living there, or anyone so unversed in weapons they couldn’t differentiate a firearm from a polearm but still thought picking it up would be smart, that’d be an astronomically careless thing to do. But they don’t, and while it’s still an astronomically _risky_ thing to do, the likelihood of accidental death by shooting in the Tower is statistically lower than…well, you’d have better odds trying to drive your car to the moon. If you’re going to be fatally shot in the Tower, it’s going to be intentional.

Tony had caught on next, during one of the earlier sessions when Bucky had come into the lab to adjust the fit on the replacement prosthetic. Despite the fact that they were in a room with glass walls overlooking an open floor, the first thing he’d done after he walked in was set his sidearm about a foot away from Tony’s hand, barely conscious of the movement in the way of old, ingrained habits. Tony’s eyes had narrowed as he looked from the Colt to Bucky and back again, but then something akin to understanding sparked in his expression and he refrained from commenting. Bucky hadn’t noticed—or, rather, he wouldn’t notice until months had gone by.

It had been a toss-up as to whether Steve or Natasha would figure it out next. In the end, Steve won, even if he sort of cheated because Tony joked one night that he hoped Bucky didn’t keep leaving weapons out when guests were in the Tower.

“Wait,” Steve had said, looking up from where he was sitting on the bed, propped against the headboard with a book. “He does that with you, too?”

Turning to face him, hands propped up on the edge of the dresser, Tony had lifted an eyebrow in a silent reprimand of “you are _not_ this dense” without ever saying the words. “You mean all but giving me a weapon every time I’m in a room alone with him?” he’d asked. “Yeah. I thought it was just me, or maybe a weird quirk.”

Steve had just shaken his head. “Not a quirk—or not one I ever noticed—and definitely not just you.”

“Food for thought,” Tony had replied, and in hindsight Steve would think the distinct lack of nosiness was a dead giveaway (it was). Except with a lapful of warm Tony Stark, taking the book and setting it on the nightstand before he pulled Steve into the kind of kiss that’s more enticing than the best strip-tease, he’d become a little occupied.

But three days later, Steve’s knocking on Bucky’s door, mostly just to say hey, because he can. Following Norilsk, he and Tony, accompanied by Phil and Maria, had gone straight to the World Security Council with a selection of the documents they’d obtained on the Winter Soldier and Red Room programs—after, that is, a great deal of berating. Neither Phil nor Maria were all that miffed at the spontaneous operation so much as being left _out_ of it, since while the former had certainly left a clusterfuck in its wake, it’s also something Russia isn’t eager to advertise, and all they’ve heard out of the Kremlin is crickets. But the WSC had been helpful for possibly the first time in its existence, calling off the proverbial hellhounds: the hearings are still ongoing, but the looming charges of war crimes and the targets on Bucky and Natasha’s backs have subsided. Nothing’s fixed, per se, but on that front, at least, the chaos seems to have receded. While there’s no guarantee it won’t rear its head again, for now they’re happy to call it a win.

As an added bonus, being hauled out on an unexpected operation about six months too early had had the unexpected consequence of sundering Bucky a little further from his hermit-like tendencies. If he hasn’t yet entirely reacclimatized to the constant presence of people who aren’t there for the sole purpose of issuing orders or causing him pain, it has at least continued to get easier in the Tower. It takes a lot less cajoling to get him to join the team for meals or a movie, and Steve, and sometimes Natasha or Sam, will go to his quarters for some low-key company, or vice versa. They get to catch up; Bucky gets to reacquaint himself with a life in which everything isn’t torment or silence.

Steve had been introducing him to _The West Wing_ , and either in spite of or because of that, it had turned into a regular weekly thing, just the two of them like it had been when they were kids. Sometimes he even catches a glimpse of the guy who hauled his scrawny ass out of an alley before ripping him a new one for taking on a bully almost three times his size.

It’s still a work in progress, for all of them, with Bucky’s moods almost as mercurial as Tony’s and twenty times more dangerous (though Norilsk had served a secondary—tertiary?—purpose and dispelled the lingering awkwardness in the team’s dynamics after the whole “Bucky killed Tony’s parents” revelation). Natasha had known him when they were both operatives more than they were people, and while she is familiar ground, it can be a precarious balancing act for them both now that their relationship isn’t based solely in orders and assignments and weapons. Sam only knows the stories and the man they’d brought back from Romania, which in some ways is a boon, since it allows Bucky a clean slate with someone who isn’t a complete stranger. Steve is like an old, favorite coat that no longer fits quite the way it used to, trapped in his own quagmire of complications and constantly trying to be careful of his friend’s boundaries, not pushing him back into the pre-war mold he’d once filled. They’re both getting better at the latter, but they’re a far cry from perfect.

And yet, despite all of that, these intermittent flashes of something that feels like home—memories without the agony of the war or the seventy years that had passed in its wake—help ground them both. Steve likes to think it grounds Bucky in general, especially where Tony is concerned. While Steve is deliberately not playing referee between them, aside from some isolated moments they’re warily maintaining something a little more collegial than détente but more distant than actual friendship.

Today, however, seems like one of the better days. It might even qualify as good. Bucky just yells, “It’s open!” at Steve’s knock, which is an improvement in and of itself. He’d known Steve was coming, since unless the team gets a call this is now basically a standing date; but that he is evidently comfortable enough to trust in JARVIS’ abilities and not guard that door like he’s a prison warden says a great deal. He hadn’t been allowed near weapons until well after his move from upstate to the Tower, for obvious reasons, but when he’d answered the door at all in those initial days, it had been apprehensive and leery. More often than not, it had also entailed a bevy of questions through the door like he was trying to make sure his handlers hadn’t gotten into the building, circumvented all their security protocols, and were trying to draw him into a trap.

“Hey,” Steve says as the door shuts behind him.

“Hey yourself,” Bucky replies from the kitchen, left of the main entrance, where he’s standing at the sink. “How’ve you been?”

It’s one of those autopilot questions, asked mostly because trying to relearn how to interact with actual human beings is inordinately more arduous than one might think. Still, Bucky’s body language is a little more affable, his smile faster, if still marginally tentative, so Steve runs with it.

“You mean since I saw you this morning?” He grins. “Wrote a novel, invaded a couple small countries, rebuilt a car, started a company—you know, slow day.” He shrugs, and his friend glares.

“Smartass.”

“You say this like it’s news.”

“Keep going, see if I give you a beer this time.”

Steve places a hand over his heart, feigning shock and hurt. “You wound me,” he says, but he’s laughing as he does, so it kind of kills the effect.

Yeah, this is apparently a good day. Even with the entire Tower fluent in and speaking a lot of sarcasm, Bucky’s been chary of joining in with the insults and teasing. The moments in which he lets his guard down and permits himself to be a snarky asshole are growing increasingly less few and far between, but they’re still rare. Hearing it now releases some of the strain in Steve’s body that he hadn’t even known was there. Ill-advised as it may have been to take Bucky on that last mission, having the chance to go up against his old handlers—metaphorically speaking, anyway—and _do_ something to undermine their operations seems to have done him some good in turn.

“So, more of this novel, utopian thing where politicians aren’t all feckless jackasses and the government actually gets things done?”

“The twenty-first century has done a lot for your cynicism,” Bucky observes as he passes by and hands Steve a beer before sitting down beside him.

“No comment,” Steve answers blithely as JARVIS cues up the next episode, but it doesn’t escape his notice that there’s a gun on the coffee table—on _Steve’s_ side of the coffee table—like it had been placed there specifically because Bucky knew Steve would be coming down.

They get through a bottle each and an episode—“if Nat were the type to write position papers, she’d definitely do that,” Bucky observes, to which Steve replies, “Yeah, but she’d be less bubbly and more terrifying”—but when they break to swap the empty bottles for new ones, Steve doesn’t hit play. Instead, he half-turns on the sofa, pulling one leg under him so he can face Bucky, and his friend pauses. In the back of his mind, Steve registers that the wariness, the enmity, the tension of waiting for a blow that never comes, hasn’t risen in his eyes. It’s another one of those infinitesimal changes that’s monumental despite its subtlety.

“What?” Bucky asks at last, and Steve tips his head in the direction of the gun.

Deliberately keeping his voice casually inquisitive and nothing more, he asks, “Why do you do that?”

Brows knitting together, Bucky looks at the Colt, then looks at Steve, uncomprehending. “Do what?”

“I thought it was just a thing you did,” Steve says with a shrug, “or maybe it was just me, except you never leave a weapon in someone else’s reach when there’s more than two of us in the room.” His lips quirk up in an ironic smile. “Of all things, I wouldn’t have noticed if Tony hadn’t mentioned it, but since it’s obviously not just me, and it’s not a constant habit, now I’m curious.”

Still frowning, Bucky bites at his bottom lip like he’s trying to swallow entire sentences. The he takes a deep breath and looks up, meeting Steve’s eyes squarely. “I—it’s what I was taught. My handlers.”

It’s Steve’s turn to frown. “Sorry, I…don’t follow.”

“If I was with one of my handlers and they were unarmed, I surrendered my weapon. I hardly needed one to be lethal, I apparently killed more handlers than any other operative, and they needed a way to put me down if they had to.”

The way he says it is so prosaic, like he’s stating the sun will come up tomorrow, that it makes Steve’s jaw drop. He’s mildly surprised it actually stops instead of falling endlessly wider, à la the python trying to swallow a cow. “But you—I—they did _what_?!”

He hears his voice rise, and he hadn’t meant to yell. He’s cursing himself before the syllable is even out of his mouth, because there’s a flare of panic in Bucky’s eyes and a minute recoil, like he’s expecting to be hit and knows he’ll only be struck harder if he tries to avoid it. Suddenly, Bucky’s calm, albeit cautious, submission of his weapons in Suceava takes on a whole new level of meaning Steve wishes desperately he never had.

Trust might still be a tenuous thing for Bucky, but he had at least—mostly—stopped flinching away from sudden, sharp movements, lost that guarded vigilance in his eyes when they were at home. Steve wants to hit himself over the head, wants to turn back the clock and forget to ask the question so they never break the easy mood of the day, wants to hug his friend until neither of them can breathe and they both wake up from this unceasing nightmare.

“I was—I _am_ dangerous,” Bucky says, and there’s a quiet, almost plaintive note in his voice that wrenches at Steve’s heart and makes him want to scream. Or cry. Or possibly both. He thinks he’d like to go back and find every one of those handlers and murder them in the slowest, most agonizingly torturous ways he can think of, even if he has to bring some of them back from the dead to do it.

The anger simmering under his skin on Bucky’s behalf doesn’t want to subside, kindled even hotter by its lack of a target, but his fury is not what they need right now. So he takes a deep breath, shakes his head, and leans over to pick up the gun. He moves slowly, deliberately, projecting his intent so loudly he might as well have painted a sign and hung it over his head. Bucky reels back anyway. The fleeting, irrational thought arises in Steve’s head that he almost wishes they could go back to the days when, in lieu of blaming himself and drowning once again in the blood accumulated in his past, Bucky would just try to kill them. Somehow that hurt less.

But he gives voice to none of that, simply turns the Colt and wraps his hand around the barrel, offering it to Bucky grip-first. For a soldier, for a field agent, for an operative, for a cop, putting yourself in the line of fire as you willingly hand a weapon to someone else is something you almost never do, but it’s the preeminent gesture of certitude, of trust. Bucky’s spent enough time in those environments that Steve hopes he’ll understand the point, and the surprise that flits across his face suggests he does. Still he balks at taking it, as though he’s expecting a catch, and Steve just waits patiently, holding out what might well be the world’s most ironic peace offering.

“I trust you,” he says simply. “ _We_ trust you. Your handlers were wrong.”

Bucky looks at him, eyes full of so much pained hope it hits Steve like a punch to the solar plexus. “No, they weren’t,” he whispers.

“You were a weapon because that is what they forced you to be,” Steve tells him. “That doesn’t make you any less of a good man. I am handing this back to James Barnes, who got trained by the Russians; not to a Russian operative who happens to be named James Barnes. You’re my best friend, and I love you. I don’t need to be armed to trust that you aren’t going to hurt me.”

“Even when I already have?”

Steve shrugs one shoulder in exaggerated nonchalance. “Not since you weren’t under someone else’s orders,” he points out, and then he makes himself smile. “Now would you please take this damn thing before my arm falls off?”

Laughing—unsteadily, perhaps, but authentic and unfeigned nonetheless—Bucky does. If he only puts it back down on his side of the table instead of holstering it, it’s still progress.

“Punk,” he mumbles, and Steve grins.

“Jerk,” he replies easily, carefully pulling his friend into a loudly telegraphed one-armed hug. To his surprise, Bucky lets him, and if the mood is more subdued than it had been when Steve first walked in the door, they’re not back at square one. “If you want to go take a survey of the entire tower, be my guest, but I can guarantee your time is better spent here. No one disagrees with me.”

“You’re all insane,” Bucky says as he leans into Steve’s side, but there’s no hostility in his voice, only a touch of wonder.

“Takes one to know one,” Steve replies cheerfully, and has JARVIS hit “play”.

**ix. kick me out of paradise, cross me off the good side**

_12 August 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“Shit,” Sam says, when he crashes straight into Bucky outside the Tower’s gym.

“Oof,” Bucky grunts, smacking the floor in a breakfall, muscle memory pulling him into a groundfighting stance.

Beside Sam, Clint raises an eyebrow. “Nice reflexes.”

Leaning down, one hand outstretched, Sam says, “Sorry, man, I didn’t even see you there.”

“No problem,” Bucky says after a second, when his fight-or-flight response has stopped demanding he eliminate the threat and he can conjure up the civilized-society response. Taking the proffered hand, he lets Sam pull him to his feet.

Clint gestures at the open door. “Heading in?”

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, motioning for them to go first.

Maria is the only one already there, the steady whir and thump of the treadmill barely audible beneath the music.

“Okay, first, I thought you hated treadmills,” Clint says, pitching his voice to be heard across the room, “and second, you're running to _Bach_? Seriously?”

She slows just enough to get her breath back to talk, looking over her shoulder at him. “I do, but I missed my morning run when the World Security Council decided it desperately needed a meeting, and now I don’t have time for an actual run. And what the hell do you have against Bach?”

“Nothing!” he says, “I just think it’s a bizarre choice to run to. Doesn’t Tony have some sort of ‘Let’s Go Kill Things’ playlist?”

“He does, Agent Barton,” JARVIS replies, earning a baleful look from Maria and complete glee from Clint.

“I have to hear this,” he declares. “Speak now or forever yadda yadda yadda.”

When no one objects, he grins wider, and “Highway to Hell” starts playing a moment later. Of course it does. Bucky can’t quite suppress his own amusement as he wraps his hands (more to protect the bag from his hands than the other way around); nor can he refrain from marveling at the fact that this—all of this, from the people to the music to the everything else—is illogically comforting. Normalizing, he’s pretty sure his shrinks would call it, or something like that anyway. By all accounts, this should set his teeth on edge. And yet, paradoxically, it settles the edgy, low-level anger and anxiety and fear that have been near-constant companions since his mind became his own again (relatively speaking; he’s not convinced it will ever entirely be his again). They’re still present, waxing and waning beneath his skin like unreliable phases of the moon, but in this environment it feels less like a threat and a warning and more like a normal part of human emotion.

He skips the stretching and heads straight for the bag, losing himself in the familiarity of strike combinations, letting the bag absorb some of his inhuman energy levels. There’s a part of his brain that will never learn how not to catalog the presence and location of every person in a room in relation to every exit; right now, that part’s registering Sam stepping up to one of the non-reinforced heavy bags two down from Bucky’s position, and Clint taking up a spot by the weight rack. And yet, if he had the self-awareness to see it, the extent to which he’s willing to block out all of that—by choice, not operational necessity or orders—would have surprised him.

It’s barely been two weeks since that premature field assignment, and four months since he came back into the fold of polite society—or at least, polite by their standards, which are probably not those of most people. Subjectively, he feels he has more bad days than good; objectively, he recognizes that his shrinks aren’t wrong when they say he's recovered (is recovering) rather quickly. He might still think himself an imposter amongst the roster of heroes in the Tower, and a voice in his head insists all of this is a very carefully crafted illusion and he’s actually still in cryo in the middle of nowhere in Russia. He doubts that voice will ever be fully evicted, but the quiet recognition, the empathy, the acceptance from the the others provides something of a buffer. No one is trying to pretend his past does not exist, and in some ways that helps more than any of the myriad speeches about how he wasn’t operating under his own accord while he was the Soldier. He appreciates the latter, but those are harder to reconcile with his guilt. Oddly, last month’s unwanted foray into the field had done more to get his head on straight than anything else. He doubts it’ll make the APA-approved list of acceptable treatments for C-PTSD and the rest of the laundry list of things with which he’s been diagnosed (nor should it), but right now the fact that it worked for him is the only thing that matters.

When he steps away from the bag perhaps a half-hour later, Sam, who’d paused for a break less than a minute before, offers him a sealed bottle of water. Catching it one-handed, Bucky nods his thanks, propping one foot on the wall behind him as he slouches against it.

“So,” Sam says, once they’ve practically inhaled nearly a bottle each, “how’s civilian life?”

Somewhat reflexively, Bucky winces, and Sam cracks a sympathetic smile.

“That good, huh?”

Shrugging one shoulder and shaking his head slightly, Bucky says nothing at first, trying to figure out how best to respond. In the end he gets nowhere and blurts out, “How did you _do_ it?”

To his surprise, Sam laughs. “Got sent to a lot of Air Force shrinks I didn’t want to talk to, got mad, stayed mad, and at some point between missing my best friend’s funeral and getting home, I figured maybe there were more constructive ways to be angry.” He mirrors Bucky’s shrug. “Turns out I was right.”

Bucky frowns; that wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. Tentatively, he ventures, “You were angry?”

“Not as much, these days,” Sam replies easily, “but after Riley died and right after I got back to the States? Fuck yes I was angry. I was so angry I was scaring myself. Then I’d feel guilty for _being_ angry, since I was still alive so what the fuck did I have to complain about, and then get angry about feeling guilty. Good cycle.”

The reaction that has him snapping his head around to stare at Sam is more instinctive than conscious, there and done before he can stop it. The corner of Sam’s mouth quirks up in something that hovers on the line between empathy and amusement.

“Ah, you got that one, too.”

It’s not a question, which is a good thing since Bucky doesn’t have an answer that isn’t a dumbfounded nod.

“It all calmed down once I figured out how to channel it into something else, but there was a point there when I didn’t think I’d ever get past it. It’s still there now, sure, louder some days than others, but it isn’t the only thing I can process anymore.” Then Sam grins, conspiratorial and mischievous. “Being on this team and getting to go kick Doombot ass is pretty good anger management, too.”

Bucky laughs in startled agreement, nodding. He has, since he got away from Pierce and his handlers, had a plethora of conversations involving healing and forgiving yourself and recognizing culpability, or the lack thereof. There has been far less in the way of explaining how you _live_ with the kind of trauma that embeds itself all the way down to the foundations of your fucking soul, the kind that you can never forget because it shapes everything in your life going forward. Which is at least partly by design: the Tower’s residents have tried to treat him like normal, to avoid having every conversation somehow return to Bucky and Russia. More surprisingly, they’ve succeeded to a shocking degree, even after being told he was the assassin who’d been sent after the Starks. None of it remains some unaddressed elephant in the room, which in turn helps remind him that there is more to his life, past and present, than his codename.

The downside, however, is that until last month’s in-unison agreement over “you don’t get past trauma, you just learn to live with it”, Bucky hadn’t figured out how to broach the subject. It turns out he needn’t have bothered trying to find an explanation, and in hindsight the subtext of all the discussions about healing and acceptance and all the other psychiatric jargon became a lot more obvious. Go figure.

It makes his choice—and the understanding that he had _had_ a choice—easier to reconcile with himself.

\----------

The day Bucky learns the extent of Grant Ward’s treachery, his manipulation, he puts his fist through a wall.

In the moment, he can’t put his finger on _why_ the rage has come to a boil in his blood, a chemical reaction waiting to happen. It takes him a full sixty seconds to realize the rest of the team is staring at him, eyebrows raised, at which point he backs out of the room while muttering apologies in Tony’s general direction without waiting for any further reaction. Not until later that night, tossing and turning in six-hundred thread count sheets and staring balefully at the ceiling, does it occur to him that there had been no fear or judgement in the room, only surprise, even empathy.

Because they had heard the story before.

Even in DC, as the Triskelion burned and debris was still crashing into the Potomac and the Atlantic Ocean, news of Victoria Hand’s execution and John Garrett’s machinations rippled through the remnants of SHIELD like a seismic force. Like a chimera, Garrett and his team became larger and larger as time passed, a force beyond nature that had successfully infiltrated a tight-knit SHIELD spec ops team. It seemed impossible, a rumor blown out of proportion. Worse yet, everyone was so mired in digging themselves from their own respective disasters that excavating the layers under which said team had operated was a level of effort that simply had to wait.

On the run, Bucky had heard the whispers, the secrets murmured on the black-market and underground networks about the tour de force that had accomplished the unthinkable. He had brushed them aside, both because they seemed as fantastical as a dragon appearing in the skies, and because he’d had a thousand more pressing things to concern himself with.

It wasn’t until he had returned to the United States that he began to realize the extent of truth behind those stories.

It wasn’t until the team figured out that Phil Coulson was in fact alive and well that _they_ began to realize the rumors didn’t even begin to come close to the reality.

Because then they met Grant Ward.

Or, rather, they met the team Grant Ward betrayed.

\----------

Every country operates their law enforcement and intelligence agencies under different protocols and regulations, but the IC worldwide shares more tics and habits than not. That world is composed of an abundance of grey, with black and white hovering precariously at the edges, statistical anomalies so many standard deviations removed from the mean that they were as good as legend. What is named assassination in one context becomes a targeted killing to protect national security in another. Spies in popular culture are either 007 or Jason Bourne, chameleons capable of killing without leaving a trace or breaking a sweat and succeeding at superhero-like efforts to protect their countries; or they’re Valerie Plame, a scapegoat for an administration’s mistake; but the delineations of right and wrong hinge predominantly on where one stands, what one is required to defend.

Even the cases that should by all accounts be cut-and-dry—treason, for example—are not always so clearly drawn: not everyone is a Kim Philby or Robert Hanssen.

At least in theory, Hydra should be the easiest judgment to deliver, indiscriminately as bad as it is possible to get, history cum monster in SHIELD’s proverbial closet. They may not all be neo-Nazis spouting the rhetoric of Nazi Germany, but their roots leave them indelibly stained by the blood and vitriol of Adolf Hitler, and their culminating goal was and is the destruction of everything SHIELD thought it once stood for.

Nothing in the IC is simple, but if anything could be, it should have been this. Hydra is an abomination, the enemy; the remaining members of SHIELD could recognize the demon for what it was, put it aside to begin rebuilding an agency into what it was supposed to be, not what it had been warped into. And while the Avengers—such as they were, when SHIELD fell—had never officially been a part of that agency, their ties were and are close enough to drop them into the same pattern of reaction and recovery.

Coulson reappearing in their lives is a bright spot amidst swamping darkness. Or it is once they’ve a) satisfactorily convinced themselves he is actually himself and not a plant or a robot or a brainwashed mole; and b) stopped shouting at Phil—for being alive and not telling them—and Maria—for knowing he was alive and not breathing a word.

The weeks after Suceava are a chaotic mess, and it takes a few weeks for them to coordinate a meeting with the rest of Coulson’s team. Somewhere in between, Tony, Clint, and Natasha meet Phil and Maria for “lunch”, during which Coulson finally explains the last months of his life since Loki’s spear pierced his heart. The cloud of collective rage emanating from the three of them is tempered only by Phil’s halting delivery, so unlike his usual collected self, and the look of lingering shock in his blue eyes. It’s the look of unaddressed trauma, something with which they are all far too well acquainted. This, then, is why they and Maria volunteer to tell the others before Phil can so much as suggest he do it himself, why they ask how much he wants known and to whom. He tries to protest, but they refuse to entertain any arguments whatsoever, until finally he looks at each of them in turn and says, soft and sincere and so much more shattered than Phil Coulson should ever be, “Thank you.”

Ultimately, the scheduling delay allows them time to deliver the appropriate explanations to the right people. By the time Bucky has been released from SHIELD custody and the teams have managed to arrange an off-the-books meeting for not long after, everyone has had time to adjust, to absorb the information enough that their anger isn’t transmuted into another weight for Phil to bear. They congregate in a sub-basement conference room at the Tower with nothing more than subtle nods, hands on shoulders, quiet gestures that don’t require responses. Everything else is introductions and reunions, as appropriate. (The room itself is the size of a competition swimming pool, shielded from every type of surveillance imaginable, and is apparently so well-hidden and infrequently used that none of the rest of them had known it existed.)

Melinda May is frankly terrifying, not least because she and Natasha seem to hold entire silent conversations in the time it takes to raise an eyebrow. Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz have the relatively predictable stretch of speechless hero worship over meeting Bruce and Tony, since Simmons had been mostly preoccupied with science and medicine over Bucky the first time; it rapidly devolves into obscure scientific tangents most of the rest of them have no hope of following. Skye gets on like a house on fire with both Clint and Wanda, which bodes well for no one, and Mack Mackensie is a perfect match for Steve and Sam. Clint’s dismay at Bobbi Morse’s presence has the rest of them genuinely laughing for the first time in what feels like months, and the less-than-subtle glares he and Lance Hunter trade only add more fuel to the fire while Bobbi herself shakes her head in exasperation and walks clear over to other side of the room to catch up with Maria and Sharon.

But beneath the surface of professional detachment, present in some more than others, the toll their circumstances have taken is evident in the shadows beneath their eyes, the wariness painted into their body language like a morbid tattoo, the sheer exhaustion that comes of betrayal from where you least expect it. But Phil’s team and the Avengers have the same basic goal, so it seems only logical to bring them together, ensure they’ll be short at least one set of crossed wires.

They merge well, for a group of such disparate people, and while loss and treason are not their only common ground, at times they feel like the most significant. For a lot of them, it’s the moment they looked up and realized their bosses, their mentors, the people they had trusted with their lives, belonged to a shadow organization that defied everything SHIELD believed in. For some of them, it’s more specific. It’s Tony realizing Obadiah Stane had sold him out, had dealt away his life like a bad hand of cards. It’s Clint, running from his father and being lulled into a false sense of security before realizing he’d bounded straight into his brother’s hell. It’s Thor, seeing his beloved brother—the brother he will never be able to _stop_ loving—turn against him, lying with perfect sincerity to break him, to take his place. It’s Bruce, fleeing first from his family, then later his country when it comes to kill him.

As they talk, the pieces begin to come together, forming a picture of Grant Ward that is more than the rumors. There are the inevitable moments where relaying facts transforms into “what ifs” and “should haves”—“I recruited him,” Phil says; “He trained me,” Skye says; “He saved me,” Fitz says; “I gave him everything he needed to do this,” Simmons says—but the composite that emerges conveys one thing more clearly than any other: he had a choice.

He had _multiple_ choices. And he chose to walk away. He chose to stand against his team.

\----------

_7 August 2015_

In the end, it is Sam who comes to lay all of this out for Bucky, spell out the whole story. He knocks on Bucky’s door one afternoon and hands him a six-pack of some German beer while he walks right in without waiting for an invitation.

“Hi?” Bucky offers after a moment.

“Hey,” Sam says, turning to face him. “So. We should talk.”

Inevitably, Bucky feels the disconcerting sensation of his stomach trying to drop through the floor. That is a statement that never bodes well, though to be fair, his previous employers had never really bothered with the assertion; you were just dead, at which point the entire affair really ceased to be your problem.

Nonetheless, all he manages is, “Um.”

Sam snorts. “I’m not here to throw you out a window,” he says, “like I even could. Come sit down.”

As if it’s Sam’s home Bucky’s walked into and not the other way around—at least as far as Tony keeps insisting—but for lack of a better response he does as requested, perching on the edge of sofa. Sam sighs.

“Relax,” he says. “I’m really just here to tell you a story. With subtext, sure, but mostly it’s a story.”

“Thanks?”

“Thank me later.” He looks at Bucky for a long moment. “You remember you gave me access to your psych files with SHIELD.”

It isn’t really a question, but Bucky nods anyway.

“For the record, I really don’t keep track of your sessions; I’m not your shrink, I’m not even _a_ shrink, it’s not my business. But I was in for a consult on another thing and thought this might be more effective in changing your mind.”

 _At what_? Bucky doesn’t ask.

“I know you’re not sure how valid your memories are when it comes to the cognitive training, but Natasha did me the favor of not killing me when I asked her if it matched with hers.”

Then he proceeds to tell Bucky the story of Grant Ward—the full story that’s classified in the new SHIELD’s files, the one they’d heard straight from his former team, not the abridged rumor-mill version that had resulted in a hole in Tony’s wall the size of Bucky’s fist.

More than anything, it only serves to make Bucky angrier.

But Sam is right: it also changes his mind.

\----------

The thing is, anger does not exist in finite options, but rather on a spectrum.

The thing is, healing does not exist in finite options, but rather on a spectrum.

The problem is, ninety percent of the time, no one thinks to tell the people who are angry, who are trying to find ways to heal, that there is no conclusive equation, that it consists more of fumbling your way through your own brand of both. And so, when your reality does not match up to the majority of humanity’s, you try to find ways to _shove_ it into alignment. More often than not, it just means that society makes you feel like you are the one at fault.

Bucky and Natasha are equally hazy in their recall of training with the Winter Soldier program or Red Room. The files they had found in Norilsk hadn’t given them as much as they’d hoped in the way of identifying people involved in the Winter Soldier program, whether handlers or operatives, but it had at least offered some reinforcement for the procedural memories. If only any of that had been a relief.

Because in the wake of DC, with his memories and manufactured lives shattering into razor-edged psychological shrapnel, he’d begun to dream. It seemed nonsensical, at first, dreaming of people he’d never killed and crimes he’d never committed. In large part _because_ he was American, they’d sent him to the States relatively infrequently; and whatever his sins against humanity, his assignments had never required him to hold people (women) hostage and torture them out of sheer sadism. But the names running through his head—Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Dennis Rader, endless cycles of people he’d assumed must be fiction—kept coming.

Until one day he saw a newspaper article. He doesn’t remember the content anymore, just remembers passing through a market in northern Greece while trying to buy some damn groceries and almost falling face-first into a display of plums. Because he’d been taught to do something like speed-reading on crack, and he’d caught “they’re calling him the next Ted Bundy” before he was wending his way out of the market as quickly as he could without actually running. When he’d stopped hyperventilating long enough to find a sufficiently anonymous internet cafe, he’d googled Bundy. Then, with dread pooling in his stomach and dragging his heart into the floor, he’d started googling the rest of the names that had been creeping into his dreams.

And there, in the middle of a tiny Grecian city he’d never visited before and probably never will again, he’d realized with dawning horror that he’d been trained by sociopaths and serial killers.

Or, well.

His handlers—who were probably also sociopaths, in hindsight, and serial killers at least by definition—had _used_ sociopaths and serial killers as training tools.

Which is when the creeping, desperate fear began that that is what they had made of him, too. That they had expunged his past and torn away his life and that they had done it with such ease because he had _let_ them, because his head was already there. And while he’d told the shrinks and had one miserably awkward conversation with Nat about the training, he’d never dared voice that thought.

And then in came Ward—the truth of him, not the rumors and speculation. The way Sam presents it, in terms of “here is what he had”, thereby implying “here is what you didn’t”, hits like getting Steve’s fist right between the eyes: it hurts like a bitch, but the pain is weirdly clarifying.

Grant Ward had had choices, Bucky learns. Grant Ward had—near as they can tell—never been strapped to a table and pumped full of chemicals until he gave out. Grant Ward had had a fucked up childhood and been pretty well brainwashed by John Garrett, but he’d. had. _choices_. He’d had what the shrinks would probably call agency. And that’s the thing that finally snaps Bucky out of his denial: everyone else, up to now, had seemed well-meaning but ultimately unreliable.

Because of all the things that had been given to James Barnes, “choice” had never been among them. He hadn’t even been given the option of choosing to die. When he’d woken up, disoriented and in blinding pain and missing most of a limb, he’d still done exactly what he had done in Azzano: he had recited name, rank, and serial number until he no longer had voice to speak.

When they broke him of that, he began instead to say no, don’t, stop, please. He learned to say them in Russian, in Ukrainian, in what he’d been pretty sure was Czech; he tried the handful of German he knew, which was barely those four words and how to request alcohol or lodging. None of it worked.

The only thing that _had_ worked was their programming, their electroshock therapy, more traditional methods of torture, psychological manipulation and projection, a thousand other things he still cannot name. And slowly, he had begun to answer their questions, to follow their orders. He obeyed, because they had stripped him of the ability to conjure up refusal.

It took them twenty agonizingly long years, but in the end they did indeed break him.

And the conclusion Sam gently nudges him toward is that, when presented with choice, when confronted with his past versus his new reality, he had _chosen_ to run. He may not have chosen to stay with Steve, but in DC Steve had been a terrifying, out-of-place memory who could just as easily have been a threat. Bucky had done everything _except_ run back to his handlers, and not just because he’d failed to complete his mission. And when offered the chance to fight for the life his handlers had given him or try to remember more of his old one, he had chosen the latter.

It’s the first thought that truly settles him, quiets his thoughts until they’re less of an angry roar in his head, in months. It’s not an excuse, nor is it forgiveness in any way, shape, or form. But it might be something better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All geographic, technical, and infrastructural information on Norilsk was drawn from google maps and some creative google searches; neither author has ever been there. If you have, comments are welcome!
> 
> And, if you were curious, there really is a problem with [climate change and melting permafrost in Norilsk](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/14/thawing-permafrost-destroying-arctic-cities-norilsk-russia). Who knew.
> 
> Though, as of _CATWS_ , Sam works for the VA, he is likely not a psychologist, if only through timeline impossibilities. Any character’s solicitation of his advice or evaluation with regard to psychiatric matters is made with that knowledge, and is based on his lived experience rather than presumption of advanced degrees.
> 
> Chapter title from Adele’s “I Miss You”. Section titles from Mumford & Sons’ “Not with Haste”; Nichole Nordeman’s “The Unmaking”; WB Yeats’ “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time”; Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill”; Nichole Nordeman’s “The Unmaking”; Adele’s “Love in the Dark”; Nichole Nordeman’s “The Unmaking”; Dante Alighieri’s _Purgatorio_ ; Florence + the Machine’s “Queen of Peace”; and Dryer’s “Listen”.


	5. Part IV: Let This Be the Way We Remember Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team gets some answers (sort of) and gives a remarkably non-violent interview; apologies are made, thanks are given, some ghosts are finally banished, and James Bond is left forever terrified of the women in SHIELD’s employ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: [misplaced] self-recrimination and blame; canon-typical violence; allusions to child abuse/neglect, i.e. Howard Stark’s A+ parenting
> 
> Thanks to timeline complications, we’ve fudged this kind of a lot; it’s technically possible that this is part of Maria Hill’s backstory, but that is our creation and appears nowhere in either 616 or MCU canon. It’s convenient, don’t think about it too hard (no, seriously, please don’t). Additionally, when Tony is discussing commute times with a certain guest appearance, we have opted for the Columbus Circle address (58th & Broadway) for Stark Tower instead of the Park Ave.
> 
> Once again, we are so very sorry for not getting this chapter up sooner; CinnamonCake was eaten by work exams, last_illusions obtained a concussion (and conveniently had the mastercopy). But thank you for your patience and the lovely, lovely comments; you’ve made our day when they come in. :)
> 
> Added thanks to @aeringorn and ethelindi for spot-checking a few scenes for us!

**i. come down from your mountain and stand where we’ve been**

_16-17 August 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“This is bloody fucking ridiculous,” Steve snaps.

If the television weren’t actually one of Tony’s holoscreens, he’d have thrown a table at it. Beside him on the sofa, Natasha says nothing, but the hard line of her mouth and the icy look in her eyes speak loudly enough.

“Every time I think your people have exhausted their supply of presumptuous posturing, they outdo themselves,” Thor says, disgust evident in his voice. He seems a hairs’ breadth away from summoning Mjölnir and throwing it through the wall.

Sighing, Rhodey drops his head into his hands, elbows braced on his knees. “Pretty much, yeah,” he says flatly. “Every country has its own brand of bureaucratic stupidity, and then when you throw in international politics you get… _this_.” He gestures at the television, where the UN Security Council is conducting its fourth—maybe fifth—hearing into the incidents in Sokovia.

They have by now stopped counting, lest someone have a record-keeping and rage-induced stroke. But everything surrounding the hearings has acquired a sense of “wash, rinse, repeat”: they conduct the hearings, and the rest of the team swears with increasing creativity while they ask the same set of disbelieving questions. It isn’t the hearings themselves that provoke their ire. In an incident of this magnitude, they’re expected. Rather, it’s the way in which they’re conducted, as an excuse for self-righteous, indignant posturing from the panels, with a hefty side of lambasting the team in general and no sincere investigative effort in sight. They’d expect this from Congress, but the UN usually exhibits more restraint. There is, clearly, an exception to everything.

The only thing of note in _this_ hearing is the addition to the already lengthy and largely unfounded list of charges: the Avengers’ recovery of the Winter Soldier four months ago. Russia, conveniently _not_ represented by Putin himself, has stopped feigning ignorance and now wants him back, which is hardly a shock. Most of the rest of the world wants him shot. Or imprisoned. Or both.

This, too, isn’t exactly a surprise. Like the tone of the hearings, the issue that truly fuels their anger is their impotence. It has been five—nearly six—months, and not one of them has managed to wrangle an explanation as to what, exactly, their resident engineer is trying to do. It certainly hasn’t been for lack of trying.

Because Tony Stark has continued to be in front of every camera, every panel, every Congressional hearing and National Intelligence Committee meeting, closed and public alike, since they took Ultron down. It isn’t wholly illogical for him to be the face of the team for this. What bothers them is that it was never a discussion, that despite the fact they have learned to operate as a team and trust one another, this was a unilateral decision that he seems to believe they would willingly let lie.

Unfortunately, he’s arguably the best qualified to _discuss_ Ultron, even if his involvement with SHIELD is still off the books. The latter is intentional, after all, and part of the reason why Natasha was the one to address Congress after Pierce attempted world domination with Hydra and his Heli-killing-machines. To the team’s misfortune, the media and the public _want_ a scapegoat; and the intelligence community _needs_ a scapegoat; but while Natasha’s files are a useful tool, they’re neither new enough to capture public attention nor comprehensible enough to the general public. Bucky’s files offer even less. So, like some morbid parody of a sacrificial lamb, Tony’s handed himself to them on a silver platter every time. Were he a boxer, he’d be standing in the ring with his hands down, taking a shot to the chin on the first strike.

Further complicating this is the fact that their other reasonable candidates are otherwise occupied. Officially Fury’s still six feet under; Phil’s operating under the public radar regardless of his title; the World Security Council has egg all over its collective face; and Maria’s trying to rebuild the fragments of SHIELD through Stark Industries with Phil. Thor is all but untouchable—literal illegal alien he may be, but he’s an illegal, immortal alien demigod, and they don’t exactly have precedent on how one might depose a demigod who isn’t from _Earth_ , never mind the United States. Steve is…well, Steve is Captain America, and his public reputation is nearly level with Thor’s when Pierce isn’t trying to discredit him. Both Clint and Natasha need to stay as low-profile as an Avenger can be, in order to remain effective in their day jobs, and while Natasha may be fairly thoroughly blown for deep cover, they’re nonetheless more useful as operatives the less they appear in the papers or on television. And the twins, Vision, Rhodey, and Sam are all too unknown for the media to make easy targets of them.

Tony, though. Tony Stark they know all too well, and with his federal involvement carefully unacknowledged he becomes nothing more than a carbon copy of every other rich, careless, playboy. The flying suit of armor, extra IQ points, and a handful of letters after his name are irrelevant, and exactly none of that has kept him from being a very convenient target.

Initially, most of them had assumed he was just taking one for the literal team. Since they weren’t naïve enough to believe for a moment that the process would stop at one or two, they figured the rest of them would step in eventually or take his place or set up some kind of rotation. Except then the fourth hearing passed. And the seventh. And the tenth. And Tony kept standing there like a bulwark, a resolute, impenetrable human shield, all without explanation.

Every time someone would attempt to ask why, or suggest he sit the next one out, or at least bring some backup, the subject would deftly change. The son of Howard Stark, after all, had a lifetime of practice as the King of Deflection. Against that brand of ingrained skill, not even Phil or Natasha or Maria, who are without question some of the best, most redoubtable interrogators in the international intelligence community, have a chance. Nat had even tried beating him to the airfield and boarding the jet, thereby forcing him to either take her along or throw her off the plane (it isn’t difficult to guess who would have won the latter). She even succeeded, at least in the sense that she got there first: Tony had ended up on another jet at a different private airfield, leaving a very irritated Natasha and a very confused, increasingly nervous pilot sitting on the tarmac for a half-hour. The next attempt had come from Phil, who made arrangements with Pepper, and the team and even JARVIS to change the dates in Tony's calendar and not breathe a word. It was impressive display of coordination, and yet on the day of the hearing (a full ten days before it appeared on Tony's schedule), the sense of accomplishment was demolished in one fell swoop when, at 0500h in the common room over breakfast, the BBC blithely informed them that Tony Stark had been seen arriving in London the night before. He was _supposed_ to be in Hong Kong on SI business, but the news footage undeniably showed him walking into Westminster to testify before the British Parliament at large. (The UN and NATO had conducted all multinational inquiries, but Britain, South Korea, Israel, Russia, and the United State had been the holdouts for hearings of their own.)

Once he had finally remembered to pick his jaw up off the table, Phil had shaken his head. “Did we all wake up in an alternate universe after Ultron?” he asked, mostly rhetorically.

“If we did,” Bruce replied anyway, when no one else seemed inclined to speak up, “this one is just as bad as the original, and I need to go find the wormhole to get us back.”

Which, then, is why they are once again in the den of the communal floor, occupying various stages of “what the fuck”.

“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: if this were any other press request—Senate, UN, direct briefing to POTUS, _anything_ —he’d have told them to go fuck themselves by now,” Clint says, shaking his head and collapsing back down onto the couch like fighting gravity just isn’t worth the effort anymore.

“I never thought I’d use ’Stark’ and ‘self-sacrificing’ in the same sentence, but that’s exactly what he’s doing,” Phil agrees, only half-joking. It’s one of the rare evenings when he is both not working and has chosen to make use of the living quarters Tony had simply handed him. What a way to spend a night off.

With a sigh, Maria rakes a hand through her hair and blows out a breath. “I’d say he thinks we wouldn’t go in his place, except for how he’s gone out of his way to all but chase us off whenever we’ve tried to do just that.”

“So before they perhaps literally kill him,” Wanda suggests slowly, “shouldn’t one us…I don’t know, say something?”

Immediately, Natasha motions to Steve. “I vote for you.”

“What?”

“You’re technically the head of the team,” she points out logically, “and plus, he listens to you.” When Steve raises an eyebrow in a wordless _are you kidding me_ —he’s dating Tony, he hasn’t given him a personality transplant—she amends, “He listens to you more than he does the rest of us. Except maybe Bruce, and—”

“And it’s better for everyone if I don’t touch this one with a ten-foot pole,” Bruce finishes for her.

“Plus, you are the only one who has made it _near_ a hearing,” Pietro adds helpfully, “and who cares why.”

“Fine,” Steve grumbles, only about ten percent sincerely.

And it would have been, had Tony not gone straight to the penthouse after he returned and, according to JARVIS, simply crashed. Ever since Geneva, they’ve mostly spent their nights together, either in the penthouse or, on occasion, Steve’s quarters.

Or, they do on the nights when Tony’s actually aware that it _is_ night and remembers that sleep is a thing humans do. (To be fair, he’s gotten a little better at that, and Steve likes to think he’s at least part of the reason why.) Therefore, the fact that he doesn’t so much as send Steve a text saying he’s home speaks volumes. It _does_ occur to Steve that perhaps he should respect that and keep his distance; he is, however, _also_ certain enough of where they stand with one another by now to know that if Tony wakes to an empty bed, whatever’s eating at him is just going to twist that into something ugly. When he makes his way into the bedroom a few hours later, Tony doesn’t so much as twitch in his sleep. Remembering Geneva, Steve can’t help but wonder how much sleep he’s gotten in the last few days, assuming he’s gotten any at all. But he voices none of that, simply sliding into bed behind Tony and curling around him like that alone can keep the monsters at bay, like that alone will be enough.

Come morning, when Steve’s internal clock wakes him at 0500h like it usually does so he can go for a run, he is the one who wakes to an empty bed, the sheets on Tony’s side of the bed cold. When asked, JARVIS explains that he’s already in the workshop; were it not for the still-hot insulated mug of coffee on what’s become Steve’s nightstand, he’d have doubted Tony was ever there at all.

“Is he okay?” he asks, then clarifies, because JARVIS is nothing if not loyal to his creator. “Medically, I mean. He’s not dying or hiding some horrifying injury from us?”

“No,” JARVIS confirms. “Master Stark’s vitals are all normal, and his behavior is no more extravagant than usual.”

Steve can’t help but snort into his mug—only Tony could design an AI with the capability to adapt enough to make fun of him. He stays in bed long enough to finish the coffee, which is rich and dark and almost sweet, the way good black coffee should be (he’s spent altogether too much time with Tony; he’s thoroughly spoiled and he knows it, and he regrets nothing). He checks his email—no one’s died, no crises have arisen overnight—and sends a few replies, scans the news headlines for posterity’s sake and very deliberately does not read the ones about yesterday’s hearing. Then he convinces himself to leave the warm softness of the bed and drag himself out for that run.

Sam steps into the elevator a few floors down, and Steve grins at him. “Care to go for a run?” he asks.

Sam grins back, then quite cheerfully flips him off. “And do one lap of Central Park in the time it takes you to do twenty miles?” he scoffs. “I’m already supposed to get my ass kicked by Nat later, I think I’m good.”

“Your loss,” Steve says, not bothering to try hiding his amusement. As the doors open on the communal floor, Sam grumbles something incomprehensible but likely very uncomplimentary. By the smell wafting into the elevator, Clint must already be at the stove.

Ninety minutes and twenty-three miles later, Steve’s walking through the private entrance at the back of the Tower. He admittedly hadn’t intended to run quite so much as though there were a fighter jet—with a very angry pilot in the cockpit—on his tail, but lemons, lemonade, etc. He makes it back to the penthouse without seeing anyone, and since there’s mercifully nothing on his calendar except a late afternoon conference call, he takes advantage of the Tower’s endless supply of hot water. Though he’d never admit it, the sheer luxury of a hot shower not curtailed by a too-small water tank or the inability to pay the bills is something he never tires of. He’d thought the opulence of the Tower would have been something he’d never get used to, for all that it is in some places much more subtle than he’d expected (Tony doesn’t, for example, have a mirrored ceiling or solid gold bedframe). Eighteen months ago, he’d have even been right, or at least the adjustment would have taken a hell of a lot longer. Now, though, it’s less jarring, and soft mattresses don’t make him feel like he’s about to plummet straight through it to the floor. He’s even figured out how _not_ to fall out of a bed with silk sheets, but he’s silently grateful Tony doesn’t indulge in that particular stereotype all that often.

The kitchen is another perfect example, and as he wanders out onto the common floor, where Tony is conspicuously absent from the lab upstairs, Steve finds a plate in the oven with a barely-legible post-it from Clint stuck on the handle. They’d have killed for anything half this good when he was growing up, and he can’t help thinking how it would have been easier on him and his mother, that they both might have had fewer problems with their health, that she might not have died as early as she did. (For all that, after getting to know _Tony_ , instead of Tony Stark the Billionaire Playboy, he doesn’t resent what he’d once thought was sheer arrogance and entitlement.) In spite of all that, he still refuses to run the dishwasher for four items no matter how much the rest of the team makes fun of him or how many times Tony tells him there really isn’t a limit. But once the dishes are drying on the rack, he still hasn’t seen Tony, so he makes his way down to the workshop, standing in the doorway for a moment just to watch him work.

Without looking up from the table, even though his back is to the door, Tony calls, “It _is_ open, you know.”

“Hello to you, too,” Steve replies, but he takes the invitation for what it is and drops a kiss on Tony’s cheek before he takes one of the stools on the opposite side of the workbench. When it becomes clear that if he doesn’t speak, they’re like as not going to sit in silence into next year, he decides to give up on polite subtlety and cut right to the chase. “So. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“What are you talking about?” Tony hasn’t even met his eye since he came in, and much as Steve wants to tell him to stop hiding, to stop running, to _trust_ Steve, he knows that will have the exact opposite reaction from what he wants.

Bracing his elbows on the table, he sighs. “Tony. Why are you doing this.” It comes out more statement than question, but it’s a moot point, really.

“Because I’m overdue on weapons’ upgrades.”

Steve reaches across the space between them, stilling Tony’s hand with his own. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he says, as gently as he knows how, trying not to make it sound like an accusation or an interrogation. “Every other time the media has pulled something like this, you’ve had no qualms whatsoever telling them to take a fucking hike. Not this time, not once since it started. Why?”

This time Tony does look up, and Steve tries to keep the surprise off his face. There isn’t a word in any of the bevy of languages the team speaks to properly describe how thoroughly haunted he looks: his skin is too pale for his summer tan, circles dark as bruises under bloodshot eyes; his shoulders slump like seventy-pound weights are draped around his neck; and he wears lines pressed around his mouth, his eyes, across his forehead like he’d been the model for a morbid, unseen engraver. He’s borne shadows in his eyes to varying degrees since February, but this is different, and Steve wonders what the hell happened in Geneva this time even though he’ll never ask. He wishes he’d gone with Tony again, but he won’t say that, either.

It takes too long for Tony to answer, and when he finally does all he says is, “Can we please do this later? I really am overdue—I told Clint I’d have these bow modifications done last week.”

Steve considers arguing, considers pointing out that Clint is as worried as the rest of them and that the upgrades can wait; he dismisses the thought just as quickly. There’s a maelstrom of anger and resignation and something that might be fear in his partner’s eyes, so Steve just nods. “Okay. Just…come up for dinner, would you? Or one of us will come get you.”

With an answering nod, gratitude seeping into the lines etched in his features, Tony assents. “JARVIS, make a note, would you?”

Knowing when to take a hint, Steve leaves it at that. Before he heads back upstairs, though, he comes around the table to hug Tony from behind; it takes a second for him to relax into it, and Steve places a chaste kiss to his temple. “I love you,” he says, and Tony tips his head back just enough to touch Steve’s shoulder. Between the heavy gloves and the butane torch he’d picked up a second ago, he can’t really return the hug without setting either the table or Steve on fire, but he does the best he can.

“Love you, too.” It’s barely audible, but given his apparent mindset Steve considers it a significant improvement that he said it at all.

He plants himself back in the common room and spends two hours catching up on paperwork. Then Sam walks into the room with Rhodey and Natasha, clutching an ice pack to his shoulder and muttering under his breath.

“Come on, Nat,” Steve says with a grin, “we don’t want to _kill_ them—not yet, anyway.”

“And to think I almost got my ass shot for you,” Sam shoots back with a baleful look.

“And this is why I have the suit,” Rhodey replies smugly, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge.

Flopping onto a sofa, Sam groans. “I hate you all.”

“No you don’t,” Clint says from out of nowhere.

“Yes, but _you_ cook. Natasha over here burns water.”

Mug of tea in hand, she sits down on the other side of the couch Steve’s currently occupying, raising an eyebrow in Sam’s direction. “You do recall I just pounded you into the dirt, yes?”

“No, you gave me a concussion,” Sam grumbles, and she grins.

Then she appears to decide that Sam’s had enough torment for one day and turns on Steve, drilling him on his Russian and laughing mercilessly whenever his American accent hopelessly butchers his pronunciation. That she makes almost as much fun of Rhodey is small consolation, since Clint joins in, which somehow eventually segues into Natasha telling stories about how the first time she saw Clint, he was attempting to buy a sandwich and was instead accusing the baker of having inappropriate relations with his sister. Somewhere between then and Clint telling them about the time Natasha went undercover in a gay bar to find their target, Steve winds up in the kitchen helping Bruce and Clint and Phil prepare dinner. Much to his—well, everyone’s—surprise, Tony shows without prompting, and if his smiles are media-sharp and don’t quite reach his eyes, no one calls him on it.

When they’re done, Steve abandons even the idea of pretense and just announces to the room, “I’m stealing Stark for a minute,” to which Clint replies, “Do that. Otherwise he might try to upgrade the dishwasher again. _While we’re using it_.”

“Hey, that was totally justified,” Tony retorts, but with only about half the usual fire, and Steve practically shoves him into the elevator.

At the penthouse, he takes a long look at Tony, then points at the expansive L-shaped sofa. “Sit,” he says as he pours scotch for them both, setting Tony’s in front of him on the coffee table before he sits down a few feet away, within arms’ reach but not so close as to be suffocating. “So.”

“So,” Tony replies, not looking at him.

Steve reaches out with his foot to nudge Tony’s ankle. “You’re kind of freaking everybody out, babe,” he points out, deliberately dry. “I know you’re not really big on the whole emotions thing, but could you _please_ make an exception and tell me what the hell is going on? It’s been months, and we’ve run with it, but from what I hear, the last time you were acting this unusual you were actually dying.”

He gets a short, sharp bark of laughter in response. “Well, I’m not dying any faster than anyone else. Or if I am no one bothered to tell me about it.”

“Then what _is_ this?” _Why are you so determined to lie down on the wire like the rest of us will just crawl over you and leave you to die_?

For long minutes, Tony says nothing, just stares into his glass without drinking as though the amber liquid holds the answers he lacks. A year ago, Steve would have pushed him, but a year ago Steve hadn’t learned to read his silences; now he just waits it out like he has all the time in the world. Technically, he does.

“I won’t be the reason it happens again,” Tony says at last, the middle of a conversation to which Steve has not been privy. While it’s the answer to someone’s question, certainly, it isn’t the answer to Steve’s. “I can’t do this to you—to any of you—again, and I need to prevent it.”

Steve’s first thought is Ultron, except that conversation they actually _have_ had. His second, somewhat nonsensically, is that Tony’s breaking up with him, except unless Tony’s actually been stealth-dating the entire team right under Steve’s nose, that’s probably not it, either. “Prevent _what_?” he asks. “What are you talking about?”

“All of this!” Tony half-shouts, throwing his free hand out and away from his body as if to encompass the world, and the glass in his other hand shatters against a support pillar. The movement is as explosive as the exclamation, like he’s been holding that in, swallowing it down; and maybe he has, it just doesn’t clarify anything.

“Tony!” Setting his glass down on the table, Steve pushes himself forward, closing the distance between them to grip Tony’s shoulders, albeit more as a focal point than one of force. “What is _this_?”

At that Tony does look at him, and half a breath later his shoulders slump as he scrubs a hand across his face. “You know how we all got a dose of Wanda’s mindfuck whammy?” Rather than call him on the description, Steve just nods; it’s not like it’s inaccurate. “I—you were all—I killed all of you. There was _nothing. left_. It was just the emptiness of outer space and an inexplicable pile of bodies and your shield broken in two and knowing somehow that it was me who…who did what caused it.”

Shaking his head, he looks away again. “At first I thought it was just another nightmare vision. Then after Ultron I thought maybe it’s what the world would have looked like if we hadn’t stopped him. But then I realized it wasn’t—it was…” He gestures vaguely, not enough to dislodge Steve’s hands, but sufficient to convey helpless desperation. “It was what would have happened if the Chitauri had won,” he says, words spilling out in a rush, “if I hadn’t taken that nuke up into space. I was standing there, untouched, and you were the only one still breathing, and I watched you die. I watched you die, and the last thing you said to me was, ‘you could have stopped this’.”

Steve blinks at him slowly, at a loss for words. Wanda might be a member of the team—hell, they just saw her and Pietro at dinner—but right now Steve wouldn’t have all that many compunctions about retroactively throttling her. It’s not as though Tony can’t be impulsive and rash, or that he doesn’t have an ego larger than Canada most of the time; it’s that his guilt complex almost outsizes said ego. He’ll banter with the press and flirt with the debutantes, but it’s the blame and the mistakes that stay with him. Not for the first time, Steve wishes he could take back the Tesseract-fueled barbs he’d hurled at Tony on the Helicarrier, wants to throttle himself about as much as he does Wanda. Then Tony opens his mouth to continue, and Steve pushes that thought aside, lifting one hand from his shoulders to lay a finger across Tony’s lips.

“Stop,” he says, gently.

Tony might have broken a lot of things in his lifetime, but when he does, he fixes them. Hell, he tries to fix the things that he _finds_ are broken, even when he wasn’t the one who did the breaking to begin with. Just because they disagreed over Ultron, the principle stands, and they _hadn’t_ disagreed over the basic drive behind Ultron so much as the execution. As Tony had pointed out, in the middle of all the chaos, “He was supposed to learn slang, not go insane.”

“You died,” Tony says the moment Steve pulls his hand away, and the words are tired, as blunt and abrupt as though they’ve been torn straight from his chest.

“Except I didn’t,” Steve reminds him, and the sound Tony makes is rife with too much raw bitterness to be called a laugh, low in his throat like a mourning cry.

Gaze bouncing across the room, catching on everything but Steve and settling on nothing, he counters, “Felt real. You. Bruce. Clint. Tasha.” He makes that same, harsh parody of a laugh again. “Even Thor. Whatever I did, whether it was Ultron or the Chitauri or some other disaster, it was enough to kill _a god_. It killed everyone except me.”

Of all people, Steve gets it. He understands all too well the weight of survivor’s guilt, the price exacted when you are the only one alive, the only one to come out the other end, while everyone you know dies around you, and you stand helpless against it, left to wonder why you’re still breathing.

“You wanna know the worst part?” Tony asks before Steve can try to put any of that into words, but he doesn’t give Steve a chance to answer, either. “It wasn’t the destruction. It wasn’t even seeing the bodies, or hearing you tell me it was my fault. It was looking into a black hole and knowing I created it, that I killed all of you and a couple billion other people, and not having the faintest idea if I’d done it with my own hands or if I just hadn’t cared enough to stop it from happening.”

Reaching for Tony’s left hand with his right, Steve says, with all the conviction he can muster, “You didn’t kill us,” but the smile he gets in answer is razor-sharp, poised to cut and nowhere close to reaching his eyes.

“But I could,” he points out, motioning around them. “I _can_. Any given day I can wake up and raze the entire world to the ground, and I wouldn’t even have to want it, to _try_. I’ve already done it once,” he says sharply, tapping his forefinger against his temple, “up here. How hard do you think it would be to do it again?”

There is no good answer to that, and Steve looks down at their joined hands, running his thumb across Tony’s knuckles. _He’s right_ , he thinks, _how hard could it be_? Thor notwithstanding, they’re all human, but that in no way detracts from their strength and skill and capacity to wreak havoc and leave death in their wake. There’s a fine, faint line between good and evil, and while they’re all on the right side it sometimes feels like it’s only through luck and sheer force of will. _What could stop us? What could stop_ you?

And then the answer hits him with all the clarity of a bolt of Thor’s lightning.

“You won’t,” he says simply, and maybe the surety he was aiming for made it into his voice, because Tony looks straight at him with wide-eyed surprise. “It won’t happen,” he repeats, “because you aren’t a one-man army anymore. You have a team that watches your back just as well as you watch ours.” He hesitates, then adds softly, “You have a family here, and the weight of the world doesn’t have to be on just you. It might not make it any easier, but you have help; you have people who care enough to notice if you go off the deep end.”

In the silence that follows, Steve thinks he’s gone too far, said the wrong thing and pushed Tony away in the process, because his face is blank and unreadable. Steve tries to keep his gaze steady, tries not to think about how, exactly, he should start to backpedal.

Then Tony says, “Fucking hell.” There’s no anger in it; amazement, perhaps, or maybe even a little amusement, but he doesn’t seem offended. “You really are Captain America.”

Almost involuntarily, Steve’s exhaled breath becomes a laugh, and he feels his shoulders ease down from around his ears. “Last time I checked,” he confirms. “Unless you know another guy from the forties who crashed a plane off freaking Greenland.”

“Nah, that’s a pretty unique hobby,” Tony agrees, but there’s a twitch of his lips that might be called a smile, and the lines of his body seem to soften even if the strain is still visible around his eyes. Finally, he sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m usually better at separating reality from…everything else, but that? It just…” He trails off, and it still doesn’t explain what triggered all of this _now_ , but Steve nods.

“Felt too surreal to be fake?” he supplies, and he doesn’t miss the narrowing of Tony’s eyes or the sudden sharp look he casts in Steve’s direction. “Far as I can tell, mine was the least terrible,” Steve continues by way of explanation, with a wry laugh just barely touched with humor, “but it was Peggy in a ballroom, telling me we were done, that it was over and we could go home.” He shrugs, making a helpless sort of gesture as he finally releases his grip Tony’s shoulder. “I never got to hear her say that, but the only way I could have was if I’d never gone after the 107th, or never gotten on that plane.”

Again, there’s a few beats of silence; then Tony turns his hand over, interlacing their fingers. “And if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be…well, _you_.” He sighs again, shifts position on the couch so he can rest his head against Steve’s shoulder; Steve swaps hands so he can bring his arm up behind Tony’s shoulders. “Reality sucks sometimes.”

Slowly, Steve nods. “Yeah, sometimes,” he says, but then he squeezes Tony’s hand, turning his head to press his lips against Tony’s hair. “But at least it’s only sometimes.”

Silence falls again, this time less suffocating and stilted. Much as Steve tries to convince himself to keep his mouth shut, his brain keeps catching on something Tony had said earlier. He isn’t entirely certain he even wants to know the answer, but he asks anyway. “Did you know you’d be in time to come back?”

There is no need to clarify that, though he kind of wishes there was. Tony doesn’t answer right away, as though he’s weighing how much of the truth to actually give. “No,” he answers finally. “JARVIS actually called Pepper to…I don’t know, say goodbye, but she didn’t pick up.”

Steve winces, then wishes he hadn’t since Tony is still pressed right up against him. “And when you went up into the core at Sokovia?” he asks, though he thinks he knows the answer. When Tony only shakes his head, just once Steve says softly, “Then why did you do it?”

Tipping his head back enough to be able to see Steve’s face, Tony again stays silent for a few moments, eyes searching Steve’s. “Why did you?” he asks by way of answering, and Steve opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it again just as quickly. Tony squeezes his hand and smiles, soft and small and filled with understanding and just touched with sadness. “Someone had to lie down on the wire, right?”

Rather than answer—he doesn’t know that there _is_ an answer—Steve tightens his arm around Tony’s shoulders and presses his forehead to Tony’s temple. Raising their joined hands, Tony presses a kiss to Steve’s knuckles, then tucks himself back against Steve’s side. It conveys the tacit comprehension, the solidarity, better than any words ever could have.

 

**ii. seek alone to hear the strange things said**

_3 September 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

They’re in the gym when it happens. Natasha’s just taken Clint to the mats for the third time in five minutes; Tony’s sparring with Steve, and Bucky with Thor (out of all of them, Thor is essentially indestructible, a fact which seems to do wonders for Bucky’s state of mind even if none of the rest of them have any lingering concerns about him accidentally assassinating them over breakfast); and Rhodey’s spotting Sam over at the weight bench. Wanda’s doing something that’s a vague approximation of tai chi—it’s impossible to tell if she’s actually doing tai chi incorrectly, or if she’s doing something else entirely—and Pietro’s trying to break one of Tony’s treadmills just to be a dick.

Still mercilessly haranguing Clint as she grabs for her water bottle, it’s Natasha who finds out first, courtesy of the text from Fury on her phone’s home screen that reads, _WAS IT YOU_. Both the collective “you” and the “I will kill you if it was” are implied.

 _Was it us what_? she responds, and receives a _Turn on the damn news_ for her trouble. But she does as ~~ordered~~ requested and pulls WHIH up on her phone. “JARVIS, can you bring WHIH up in here?” she asks less than fifteen seconds later. Something in the timbre of her voice must catch the rest of the team’s attention, because they’re already pausing whatever they’re doing when she turns around to ask them to do exactly that.

“We have breaking news this morning,” the anchor says, as if she’s just invented an original opening line, but it’s the footage splashed behind her left shoulder that piques their interest. It’s old reel by now, but it’s also unmistakably the evac in Sokovia. “The Avengers, the intelligence community, and the UN have all maintained a steady silence on the exact details of the events in Sokovia this past February, when a rogue AI resulted in a vaporized city. The public hearings haven’t done much to change that, but at seven this morning, the _New York Times_ received an anonymous tip containing an audio file, which we’re going to play now.”

Belatedly, Natasha remembers the phone in her hand, summons up the presence of mind to text Fury back. _Wasn’t us_. She doesn’t need to know what that file contains to know that it’s the point of contention. She doesn’t get a reply, but it’s Fury; nothing is as good as an acknowledgement.

There’s a startling dearth of…well, almost anything indicative of the level of chaos on the ground: there’s no screaming, no gunfire, no explosions, no crashes, and what little they _can_ hear is mere background noise. The rumbling as the entire city goes airborne is audible even with the sound-isolation Tony had embedded into their comms equipment, but other than that, only the occasional spot of tension in someone’s voice gives away the fact that they were under any duress at all. Half-consciously, Natasha thinks they should be impressed by that.

It is and always has been SOP to record all of the comms chatter. It used to be stored on SHIELD servers—then liberated by JARVIS—but is now held in the secure server room at the Tower while SHIELD reassembles itself. And it remains SOP to classify all of those recordings: too much insight into how they operate as a team in the field is a weapon against them as well as their allies, and on-the-ground tactical changes and discussions could too easily betray their sources. Whoever cut this tape was clearly aware of that, because the string of clips gives away a remarkable amount of nothing, only the extent of human effort, of emotion, of stubbornness, that went into saving those people.

They hear Steve, saying, “Take my hand, I’ve got you,” over the creak of overtaxed metal ceding to gravity, followed by a woman’s breathless, tearful thanks. There’s Clint, basically calling himself an anachronism and saying they have a job to do. “Step out that door, and you’re an Avenger,” he says; it’s unclear to whom he’s speaking, but Wanda’s sharp, aborted intake of breath suggests it was her. They get Pietro, whose accent more than anything else gives him away, talking presumably to Clint, cheerful and offhand as he moves through the city like they’re not all about to suffer a rather abominable death. They hear Wanda: “Come back for me when everyone else is off, not before”; then Tony saying, “This works, we maybe don’t walk away,” followed by Thor’s matter-of-fact, “Maybe not.” There’s an exchange between Tony and Rhodey as they target the falling debris, decimating the pieces midair to keep them from crashing into the earth and wreaking more havoc. And there’s Steve and Natasha, with Steve’s quiet observation of the evacuation’s limits, and Natasha’s calm correction: “I didn’t say we should leave”.

Then it ends, and the anchor resumes her narrative. “The Avengers have been faced with countless accusations of disregard for human life over this past year, and the audio released this morning suggests—” But by this point, no one’s actually paying attention to the screen, and JARVIS lowers the volume as they turn to face one another.

“We know where it came from?” Tony asks.

Holding up her phone, Natasha shakes her head. “Fury asked if we leaked it.”

“The list of possible people isn’t that long,” Sam points out dryly, and Steve snorts.

“Since when has _that_ ever made a difference?”

“Point.”

“It’s about time,” Thor says simply, expression faintly pleased and touched with a hint of vindication. “They have called us liars for too long.”

“People should know what you were willing to sacrifice,” Bucky says, soft and fierce, and beside him Steve bumps their shoulders together in wordless thanks.

Whatever might have been said next falls to the wayside, because JARVIS interrupts. “Sir, Ms Maddow is on the line for you.”

Tony blinks, then cracks up, smile so wide it practically splits his face. Rhodey points in the general direction of the ceiling and says, “Seriously? Still?” to everyone else’s continued consternation, but Tony just nods and keeps laughing.

“Put her through, JARVIS,” he continues at last, fishing his phone from the pocket of the sweatshirt he’d hung up by the door. “You must be watching the news,” he says without so much as a “hello”.

As he steps aside so the rest of them can keep talking, Clint frowns, a bemused expression that draws his brows together. “The only Maddow I can think of is the political pundit.” He sounds as baffled as he looks, which is hardly shocking—Tony and reporters are notoriously like oil and water, or opposing lines of magnetic force, and he’s stupefyingly cheerful at the moment.

“No, you’ve got the right one,” Rhodey replies, grinning. While Sam and Natasha just raise an eyebrow, Clint looks over at him so rapidly it’s a miracle he doesn’t give himself whiplash. “They met at Oxford. She was totally unimpressed by his money, he was very impressed by her brain, and they’re like the _least_ likely set of friends you would ever expect, but they’ve been friends ever since.” He snorts. “She’s the only member of the press listed in his phone for reasons other than letting him, JARVIS, and Pepper collectively ignore them.”

“Hang on a sec, Rach,” Tony says, coming back into earshot, “maybe I can do you one better.” He pulls his phone away from his ear, mutes it, and then surveys them all for a moment. “Okay, from the looks on your faces I assume you already know who that was, but in case Rhodey here left out some of the details, that was Rachel Maddow—she’s a news host for MSNBC. She’s asking me for a sit-down, but since we haven’t done any press as a team, I thought I’d see if you guys might be willing to give her the exclusive.”

There’s a pregnant pause, and then Wanda says, “You trust her.” Though it is more statement than question, it’s infused with no small trace of disbelief; one can hardly blame her.

“You gave her your only interview after Afghanistan,” Natasha says, half in answer to Wanda and half query to Tony, who inclines his head in a nod.

“I did,” he confirms, then grins ruefully. “She’s good people, she just happens to be a reporter. I trust her. She’s not interested in the prurient details, never has been on stuff like this. I haven’t committed you to anything—she doesn’t know I’m asking—but if it ever crossed your mind that we should make a statement on our own terms, this is probably the best way to do it.”

Sam breaks the considering silence first. “Count me in.”

“Me as well,” Thor agrees, at the same time Steve says, “Seconded.”

No one dissents, and though surprise flashes across Tony’s expression, he says only, “I’ll let her know, then.” Putting his phone back to his ear, he opens with, “So how would you like a ratings boost that’ll piss off about seventy percent of the politicians you know?”

Steve chokes down a laugh into a strangled sort of noise, and Natasha finds herself suppressing a smile and shaking her head, trading a charged glance with Clint. “Fury’s going to have an aneurysm.”

“Yep,” Clint concurs cheerfully. “Which is why we’re gonna wait to tell him until it airs!”

 

**iii. words alone are certain good: sing, then, for this is also sooth**

_4 September 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_ ; _Rockefeller Center_

“This was a terrible idea,” Tony declares to the floor, where he’s pacing one of the green rooms at 30 Rock.

On the wall-mounted television screen, the broadcast’s A block catalogs what appears to be a history of tech innovation, both in pop culture and broader society, as well as the catastrophes that sometimes follow. As that wraps up, it segues into the events of Sokovia itself. The volume is low enough that it would have been difficult to make out any dialogue if they hadn’t already known how it would go.

From his position in one of the armchairs, Steve reaches out the next time Tony passes, catching his hand and halting his frenetic movements. “It’s going to be fine,” he says, finality solid as granite, reassurance soft as silk. “I promise.”

Tony reaches up with his free hand like he’s about to rake his fingers through his hair, then stops himself. The makeup crew would, more likely than not, kill him if they had to redo everything, so he settles for fidgeting with the edge of his tie instead. “You can’t know that.”

With a saucy grin, Steve squeezes his hand. “Sure I can,” he replies easily, dropping a kiss on Tony’s knuckles. “I’m here. Ergo, you’ll be fine.”

As intended, it garners a laugh, and some of the tension drains from the tight lines of Tony’s shoulders. “I am so bad for your ego.”

Steve snorts and counters, “Oh, you’re bad for so many things,” slipping not a little innuendo into his voice.

Shaking his head, Tony rolls his eyes. “Cocky bastard.”

Before Steve can reply, there’s a knock on the door, and a minute later they’re being led onto the set, where they can see the commercial break running on one of the screens.

“Tony, it’s good to see you again,” their host says, coming around the desk with a warm smile.

Tony smiles back, surprisingly ingenuous, and greets her with a hug. “You too,” he replies, then pulls back and gestures at Steve. “Rachel Maddow, Steve Rogers.”

“Ma’am,” Steve says with a nod, shaking her hand, and she laughs.

“Rachel, please. ‘Ma’am’ just reminds me how old I am,” she replies, and Steve grins.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got you beat by a long shot.”

“And you still look about twenty, so not really, but I appreciate the effort,” she grins back as Tony smothers a laugh. “Please, sit, we’ve got a few minutes before we’re back.”

“How’ve you been?” Tony asks as he takes a chair. “How’s Susan?”

Settling into the other chair and listening to her reply with half an ear, Steve shoots Tony a surprised, assessing look out of the corner of his eye. The billionaire’s relationship with the press is adversarial at best: if he isn’t sleeping with a journalist, he’s so scathing he may as well be setting them on fire, except neither vibe is present here. There’s history, certainly, but not that kind of history—if they weren’t in a television studio, Steve would have presumed they were just friends. Which they are, and both Tony and Rhodey had said as much, but it’s one thing to hear someone say their relationship is amiable and another entirely to see it in person. While about to sit through an interview. It’s rather like witnessing a solar eclipse: rare, and heavily storied, but something words cannot properly describe.

She’s unconventional, and not at all what he thought she’d be like; there’s no pretense, none of that egregious celebrity persona some of their interviewers have had. Hell, she’s wearing jeans and sneakers with her blazer, and it kind of reminds Steve of the first time he caught Tony off-guard in the workshop: unexpected, a little bizarre, easy and casual. Plus, she’s _tall_. Even without heels she’s maybe an inch or two shorter than Steve himself, and that’s a rare enough occurrence to catch his attention.

Off to the side, someone starts a countdown, pulling Steve out of his musings as Rachel begins their introduction. “Unless you’ve been living under a rock since January, you no doubt remember the Skynet-esque vaporization of an Eastern European city, with an AI gone bad and commanding a fleet of robots. The Avengers went up against the entity called Ultron, successfully evacuating the majority of the citizens of that city before it turned to dust. If, like me, you spend an unhealthy amount of time watching CSPAN,” she continues with a completely unapologetic smile, “or just happen to catch the news once in a while, you know the team has come under a great deal of scrutiny since then, appearing before Congress alone six times to date. Tonight, we have Tony Stark and Steve Rogers—Iron Man and Captain America—here in the studio for their first press interview since the events in Sokovia. Mr Stark, Mr Rogers, thank you so much for being here tonight.”

“Thanks, Rachel, happy to be here,” Tony replies easily. “Though I think I’m insulted by the Skynet comparison.”

“It’s the closest pop culture reference we could get,” she shoots back with a laugh, not missing a beat, “and trust me, we tried. So, first of all, let me ask you—did I get anything wrong in describing the events of the last few months?”

“No, that unfortunately covers it pretty well,” Tony says, calculatedly rueful, wry.

“Fair enough,” she concedes, corner of her mouth curling up for a brief moment. “So I’d like to start with the obvious: no one on your team or remotely involved with the incidents in Sokovia or any of the other affected countries has done a press availability since February unless it involved some sort of summons. Why now?”

“Getting the record straight in the media was, to be honest, a losing battle,” Steve answers, frank but carefully not bitter or accusatory. “There was rumor and conjecture that no amount of correction would fix, and trying to talk around operational info rarely ends well. We still have our jobs to do in addition to addressing the concerns of the involved governments. There might be more than two of us, but all of us combined didn’t have that much free time.”

“Yesterday, the recordings from your team’s internal communications channel were leaked,” she says when he stops, “and I want to play a short clip here before I get to the questions that I think have been overlooked in all the upheaval surrounding this.”

Steve half-consciously braces himself, anticipating the bickering or the tactical decisions or even the shooting and screaming; if the tightness around Tony’s eyes is any indication, so does he. But what she plays instead is about thirty seconds of the tape released the previous morning, of their unflinching decision to stay in the city unless they could get all of the civilians in the clear. It leaves Steve fighting to keep the surprise from his face.

“A lot of the issues and allegations against your team have been about collateral damage,” she points out once the recording cuts, “and these leaks show anything but the callous disregard you’ve been accused of. Why hasn’t this been brought up before?”

“Well, classified, for one,” Tony replies, deliberately light and more than a little dry; then he lets that fall away, expression turning serious. “But we couldn’t save everyone—even with resources at hand that we’d never anticipated, Sokovia, Seoul, and Wakanda alone suffered casualties in the hundreds. Death might be an inevitability in a fight of this magnitude, but while it could obviously have been far worse, that doesn’t give us the right to be cavalier about it, about the people whose lives we _couldn’t_ save.”

Rachel nods, and Steve catches a fleeting glimmer of approbation in her eyes. “Neither the press nor the lawyers have granted any of you much latitude on this,” she says with a degree of diplomacy Steve thinks merits an Oscar, “but while the criticism has largely been directed at the team in general, you, Tony, have been the sole representative in the majority of appearances.”

It isn’t quite a question, though Steve surmises she has one ready. But where Tony would make another reporter work for it, letting stony silence convey his complete disdain at their inability to do their job, this time he merely shrugs. “All of our names were going to be dragged through the mud no matter what we did, and there was no reason for all of us to be there while it happened,” he replies with a shocking degree of candor. “Part of our team still works for the intelligence community, and while complete anonymity is no longer an option for them, it makes sense to minimize their exposure. I’ve already got a media presence that’s covered the bases from ‘shocking’ to ‘scandalous’ pretty well over the years, so it made sense for me to handle it where possible.”

“In the interest of full disclosure, you and I have been friends for a long time, but anyone familiar with your public appearances knows you’ve been unusually reserved in your own defense.” Again, Steve thinks she should have gone into Hollywood. Or perhaps the State Department. Briefly, she plays a clip of Tony’s closing statement from the hearings into the Iron Man suit, raising an eyebrow pointedly. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask why. Do you feel particularly responsible for this?” she asks then. In this, too, with any other reporter there would be that sense of looking to draw blood; here, though, it’s a genuine question, not one asked merely to get the lurid details and a soundbite.

“Ultron was my creation,” Tony replies baldly, though Steve can see the strained lines of his torso, like so many guitar strings pulled too tight. His fingers tap lightly at the tabletop in a nervous tic, and without thinking the action through Steve reaches between them and lays his hand atop Tony’s, effectively stilling the motion. Tony’s exhale isn’t audible to anyone except the three of them, even with the mics, but the touch seems to steady him. It isn’t until Steve looks over and sees the high arch of Rachel’s eyebrows that he realizes how obvious the gesture is. He’s mildly startled to find that he doesn’t care, but when she doesn’t interrupt Tony to comment, Steve’s so grateful he could kiss her.

“Strucker would have wreaked havoc no matter what we did; he had Loki’s scepter, and that thing is literally designed to mess with your head—God of Mischief, instrument of chaos…” Tony rolls his free hand in a “and so on” kind of gesture. “But regardless of what would have happened, Ultron was mine, and I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by trying to deny culpability.”

“The intent was pure,” Steve offers by way of intercession, “and that was part of the problem—it was a little _too_ pure. Loki and Manhattan brought us to a different kind of warfare, and not one that mechanical weapons are really equipped to fight. Having something as a boundary to protect humanity in the face of that kind of threat made sense, but I don’t think any of us ever thought it would be necessary to place parameters to stop protecting humanity from becoming protecting humanity from itself.”

“That’ll be a good stump speech—keep it, you should run for office,” Rachel replies with a straight face, startling Steve and Tony into a laugh. “Thank you, both, for coming in to talk about this. I hope you’ll keep us updated.”

“Of course, our pleasure,” Tony answers, but it doesn’t sound like a rote response.

Turning to face the camera directly, she says, “Tony Stark and Steve Rogers will be back tomorrow night in my exclusive interview with the Avengers team about the events in Sokovia and more. We still have a lot to get to tonight, including Rick Santorum’s face-off with a duck; stay with us.”

Tony quirks an eyebrow at her while he turns off his mic pack, and as soon as the camera cuts he asks, “Rick Santorum’s face-off with a duck?”

“Oh, don’t even!” she retorts indignantly. All the professional poise she’d directed at her audience a millisecond ago is gone from her voice as her expression takes on a comedic mix of incredulous, giddy, and mock-offended. “Oh my _god_.”

Tony at least has the grace to look mildly sheepish, though he doesn’t relinquish Steve’s hand and Steve makes no move to do it himself. “Yeah, so,” he says after a beat, and Steve snorts.

“Iron Man and Captain America,” she says, throwing her hands up in something that might be exasperation or delight or disbelief, or possibly all three, Steve’s really not certain. “And I thought nothing could top someone announcing their bid for the presidency on this show.”

“You’re welcome?” Tony offers, and she points at him.

“How could you not tell me?!?” she protests, then pauses. “Wait, no, congratulations first—and you so owe me this story,” she adds to Tony, “but congratulations, this is awesome.”

Steve grins—he can’t really help himself, and Tony’s a warm, steadying presence beside him. They’re going to get endless flak for this once they get back to the Tower, and the media is undoubtedly going to massacre them, but her attitude is catching and would be even if they weren’t still in the most tension-ridden honeymoon phase of any relationship in the known universe. “Thanks,” he offers, and she grins back.

Then she looks back at Tony and resumes, “How could you not tell me?!?”

Laughing helplessly, Tony shakes his head and lifts a hand palm-up as he shrugs. “We weren’t _not_ telling you,” he tries, but she’s having none of that.

“Subtle as a freight train,” she says, utterly deadpan but fond, and it’s his turn to grin.

“We really weren’t planning on making it A Public _Thing_ ,” he continues, sobering a little, and Steve can _hear_ the capitalization, “or I swear, we would have warned you. And I was going to tell you before we left, since for a news anchor you have _the worst_ poker face I have ever seen.”

“I do not!” she squawks, but it’s mostly a token protest. “You owe me,” she adds before either of them can contradict her. “You really, really owe me—we’re in the same damn city!”

“Hey, you could’ve made the ten-minute trip to the Tower, too, I’m not the only one at fault here,” Tony points out, then grins again, broad and bright. “Besides, we did just get you two exclusive interviews.”

“You still owe me.”

This time, he just laughs. “Yeah, I know.”

\----------

“We are gonna get so much shit for this,” Tony says as they drive back to the Tower, but his tone is unrepentant, full of barely contained mirth.

Steve snorts. “It’s not like they didn’t know.”

Technically, he’s not wrong, but even he doesn’t put stock in the words coming out of his own mouth. Sure, everyone had been there for that kiss just after New Year’s, not to mention the awkward fuckbuddies routine that followed; and the core team that actually lives at the Tower and not the Academy can hardly miss the two of them curled up together on the sofa during movie nights. And yet, despite the endless, high-school-esque teasing, no one’s actually asked or confirmed outright. Perhaps more importantly, no one outside the team knows, and neither Tony nor Steve had exactly planned to put out a press release.

There is, therefore, a certain inexorable quality in the atmosphere as they make their way back. Instead of slinking off to the penthouse to hide the way self-preservation instincts do their best to invoke, they detour to the communal floor instead. Because why _wouldn’t_ their teammates have nothing of more importance to do besides watch their interview live? It isn’t as though they’re tasked with the safekeeping of humanity or anything.

“Dude, you just outed yourselves on national television,” Clint says the moment they step out of the elevator, as though they weren’t there when it happened.

The rest of the room is all feigned indignation and poorly stifled amusement. Steve just resigns himself to the fact that he works with sadistic human beings. For their part, Maria and Nat look equal measures of unsurprised, augmented with an oversized portion of unsympathetic mirth over the impending hazing. Phil’s sporting a look of “it’s about damn time”, infused with just a touch of “Tony Stark is sleeping with my childhood hero, everything is ruined”. Thor, on the other hand, just looks happy for them, in a way that would be bombastic and obnoxious on a regular human, but with his sincerity actually _doesn’t_ inspire the urge to forcibly introduce him to defenestration; Jane, though, looks like she might be tempted to plan their wedding (if she weren’t so thoroughly married to science herself, that might actually be a serious concern). Bruce is sharing looks with Betty like they’ve been waiting for this for months, and the twins have matching triumphant looks of “I _knew_ something was up!”

“Technically it was cable news,” Steve replies blithely, deliberately reaching down to catch Tony’s hand in his own.

“That is so totally _not_ the point,” Clint shoots back, just as Sam says, “I think you’re missing the point,” and Clint high-fives Sam over his shoulder without looking.

“Hey,” Tony protests mildly, “it could have been Fox.” Then he pauses contemplatively. “Actually, I’m almost sorry it _wasn’t_ ; the entire station would have gone apoplectic and died of a collective heart attack,” he muses, half to himself, and Rhodey snorts.

“You didn’t even warn the poor woman, did you?”

“In our defense, we didn’t _plan_ it,” Steve offers, then grins. “Plus she already yelled at us as soon as we were off the air.”

Muttering something that sounds strikingly similar to, “Nothing more than you deserve,” Clint rolls his eyes at them both.

“Well, if you’re not all too wound up to eat,” Tony says wryly, baiting them, “that Greek place is delivering in like ten minutes, so.”

“This is why we keep you around,” Natasha replies.

“It’s _my_ house!” Tony protests the way he always does, but there’s no bite to his feigned indignation.

And just like that, everything’s back to normal. If only the rest of the world were that simple.

 

**iv. he who made you bitter made you wise**

_2 October 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

In the midst of successive, seemingly endless crises, it is a relatively easy thing to compartmentalize the ugly, complicated components you don’t know how to process. Do it long enough, and shunting those bits away into a cognitive box vaguely labeled “later” becomes something akin to second nature.

The inevitable consequence, however, no matter how deftly skilled you happen to be at denial and avoidance, is that eventually the box overflows and leaves you with two choices: handle them, or find another crisis. Option three has an alarming tendency to involve blows to your sanity; you don’t talk about option three.

Come October, this precisely is Tony’s dilemma. Under the onslaught of everything that had occurred since February began, it has been a straightforward, necessary coping mechanism to channel his focus to the most pressing problem. Ultron, then Bucky, then the hearings, and so on—all of it demanded objectivity. He would never grant the investigative committees the satisfaction of breaking him; Ultron he’d have taken down if it killed him; and a contradictory combination of clinical detachment and seeing Bucky from Steve’s perspective let him focus on the medicine, the rescue, the impact to the team.

But now? Now the hearings are beginning to slow in their frenetic pace, though they have not ceased (it feels, most days, as though they’ll never cease). Now Bucky has found enough balance to seek the rest of them out; he joins them more frequently, and with less apprehension, and he and Natasha conduct quiet conversations in Russian that leave her softer around the edges and him just a touch steadier. No one asks after the history they clearly have and just as clearly don’t wish to discuss, but they mold themselves around the new dynamic as though it had always been there. And if Steve’s anger seems to have been subdued into a kind of sadness, or regret, he doesn’t mention it, so Tony doesn’t ask.

It’s partly motivated by their relationship: he tries his best to make it clear to Steve that he will listen if Steve wants to talk, but he doesn’t press. But it’s just as motivated by selfishness, because with the chaotic pace of the last months beginning to abate, his own emotions are churning to the surface like water reaching its boiling point, and the last thing he wants is to say something rash that turns out to be the straw that breaks them. A great many adjectives and more than a handful of nouns have been used to describe Tony Stark; anything that intimates he deals with emotions in a mature, controlled manner has never been among them.

The anger is self-explanatory, and relatively straightforward—he has spent a great deal of his life angry at things beyond his control, and he has subsequently become very adept at either hiding it or channeling it into something else. The problem is not the anger itself, but rather the waking realization one morning that the fury itself has faded; the need to _be_ angry, however, has most certainly not.

But this, too, fades, burning bright and hot as a dying star and fading with only slightly less celerity. Because the hate is fueled by the Winter Soldier, by a faceless specter that is one of Russia’s most prized weapons, by the thing that took his ~~mother~~ parents from him. It is easy to despise that Soldier, as easy as knowing the sky is blue, when their relationship is purely impersonal: Howard may have been an unrelenting jackass, and Maria may have given up on him in favor of her own sanity, but they were still his parents.

Then he _meets_ the Winter Soldier, comes face-to-face with Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend. It, and everything else in the ensuing months, chips away at that blank, objective barrier between them, hell bent upon transforming the assassin into the human being. Tony has seen enough regret in his life, in others as well as himself, to recognize it when he sees it, and the world-weary guilt Bucky carries like a mantle is too familiar to push away or dismiss. The self-loathing that hovers above him like a backhoe waiting to drop its contents and bury him is just as familiar, a constant companion of Tony’s long before he had come back from hell with metal where his heart had once been.

In the face of that, it is increasingly difficult to maintain the façade that Tony does all of this for Steve’s sake alone, especially once he is forced by circumstance to be isolated in rooms with Bucky, trying to replace his old prosthetic. Between music and practice, he is well schooled in spending long periods of time talking to no one but himself and his robots, but the silence that rises between him and Bucky is too thick to let them do anything but break it. In so doing, the barrier begins to break with it, the chipping away accomplished now by a sledgehammer instead of a screwdriver. If ignorance is bliss, knowledge is torture—faced with the man and not the dossier, it is impossible to prolong his hatred for things that weren’t Bucky’s own doing. He’s a hypocrite, certainly, but not even Tony can be _that_ much of a hypocrite, nor is he so heartless that he can ignore the floundering, slightly desperate look Bucky has worn since he began reacquiring his memories.

If anything, it would be less trying to remain angry if Bucky were demanding, or even asking for, forgiveness. But he doesn’t, instead seeming to expect censure, expecting that he must work to regain his right to basic human dignity even if he may never succeed. So Tony relents, slowly; and as they talk, the fragments piece together in odd ways that delineate far more commonalities than differences between them. In Bucky’s rare unguarded moments, Tony catches glimpses of the man Steve has spoken of, heavily sarcastic and deceptively intelligent and holistically _good_.

In the weeks after Norilsk, their truce breaks into something more like genuine friendship, extending past the courtesy conversations in the labs or cursory comments in passing. Tony keeps expecting to wake up and find all the anger rushing back, undoing the progress they had made since April.

It never does.

\----------

“So give these a try,” Tony finishes, handing Natasha a modified pair of her signature Widow’s Bite.

It’s late enough that the communal floor below is barely lit. The glow of Manhattan at night, stretching out against a seemingly endless horizon, fills the floor-to-ceiling windows like a satellite map.

“They’re about half the weight of the originals, and if I change some of the metal in the components, I should be able to get them even lighter. Let me know how they feel, what needs adjusting, if anything is fucked up, whatever.”

Turning the bracelets over in her hands, Nat looks up at him with something bright in her blue eyes—the sort of gratitude you can only learn after a lifetime without kindness. And while Tony expects sarcasm, some manner of idle threat, all she says is, “It’s less than four kilos wrapped around each wrist; I’ll take it.”

Her tone is dry, and Tony snorts. “The things we get used to, right?”

“You Americans are just too soft,” she retorts, mouth curving up in a smile, then nods at the weapons. “Thanks.”

Tony sketches her a mock bow, and she rolls her eyes with alarming fondness as she throws a pen at him on her way out the door. He dismisses the screenful of schematics he’d been using while talking to Natasha, pulling up the designs for Sam’s flightgear instead. So far, Sam hasn’t needed to be his own transport for extended periods of time outside of combat, but Tony’s penchant for cover-your-ass contingencies is a long and storied thing. Plus, trying to stretch flight time translates to experimenting with fuel, and an excuse to blow something up “accidentally” is never to be turned down.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches movement by the lab door; when it doesn’t continue past, but doesn’t venture closer, either, Tony looks up to find Bucky standing by the entry, fidgeting in place.

After three minutes and thirty-two seconds of silence overlaid by Black Sabbath, he lowers the volume and says, “Hey,” in the hopes that providing an opening means they won’t end up standing there for five years. Then he goes back to the displays, motioning with one hand for Bucky to come in and sit, or stand, or just get out of the doorway.

Bucky takes a hesitant step forward, staring at Tony’s hand like it’s a coiled, hissing cobra. Slowly, he leans against a table, eyes now fixed firmly on the floor. Still he remains silent, fingers straying toward a silicone mold beside the keyboard and fiddling with it. Rather than push, Tony simply waits him out now that he isn’t lurking somewhat creepily in the door. He might now be lurking somewhat creepily and very awkwardly _near_ the door, but improvement is improvement, and months spent alone in labs with each other has taught Tony the differences between Bucky’s silences when he comfortably has nothing to say versus when he’s trying to work up to something.

“Thank you,” he says abruptly, blurting the words out like they’d been threatening to dam up his throat and choke him if he didn’t.

The confusing non-sequiturs have become commonplace enough that Tony barely blinks this time, not even looking away from his displays. “For what, the arm?” But Bucky only makes an aborted, frustrated noise in the back of his throat, grip tightening on the mold like he might crush it down to the individual molecules, so Tony goes with the next logical option (if he’s wrong, it’s not as though he hasn’t acquired a list he can work through). “For letting you stay? It’s not a problem.”

This time Bucky shakes his head, dislodging a few strands from his haphazardly tied bun. “No. I mean—” He breaks off, a muscle in his jaw twitching as though he’s trying to physically chew on the words and spit them out. “You didn’t have to pretend we were okay,” he clarifies, almost tripping over the syllables. “If this were my home, I don’t think I could have done it. I probably would’ve thrown you out on your ass as soon as you were on your feet.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Tony counters.

The look he receives in answer is as grateful as it is disbelieving, which would be a sadly viable subtitle for the push-pull of Bucky’s entire recovery cycle. When he doesn’t reply, Tony finally brushes the assortment of screens aside and meets him stare for stare, waiting a few beats before he sighs, shoving both hands through his dark hair.

“I’m not pretending.” Almost immediately, Bucky opens his mouth to reply, to contradict, but Tony holds up a hand to stay the protest scrawled across the other man’s face. With a wry smile that feels more like a wince, Tony admits, “I was at first, if only for Steve’s sake, but I’m not anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry at Russia’s Winter Soldier, but I haven’t been angry at Bucky Barnes for…a while now.”

Even as the words leave his mouth, Tony’s faintly surprised at the depth of his own sincerity. It is, oddly, like a weight off his shoulders. “They say don’t throw stones at glass houses and all that, and I sure as shit don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to being pissed at things you did that you couldn’t control.” Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on the workspace, loosely interlacing his fingers in front of him. “I’m not doing you a favor here, man—not anymore. I hear the way Steve’s talked about you practically since I met him, and you’re a good guy who got thrown into a nightmare. If I can’t empathize with that, I don’t deserve any of the forgiveness people offered _me_.”

For a long minute, broken only by the low hum of one of the machines Bruce has running a test overnight, Bucky just keeps staring at him. “I keep remembering,” he says quietly, looking away at last. “The more I do, the more I think they should have just dumped my ass in ADX Florence, but thank you. For giving me a chance, if nothing else.”

Tony frowns, brows drawing together in puzzlement; the smile Bucky gives him in answer is small, tinged with regret. “Steve told me. I know you pulled some strings to keep me out, and whether you did it for Steve or me or to stick it to Fury, I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” Tony says firmly. He straightens, palms resting on the table. “Call it paying a blood debt if it makes you feel any better, but the person I vouched for was James Barnes, not a Russian operative.”

“They might be the same thing.”

“They’re not,” Tony counters, “not in the way you mean.” Bucky pauses, head tilted quizzically to the left in a silent question. “James Barnes wasn’t some psychopathic sadist who just never got around to homicide until Russia handed him the opportunity on a platter. They changed you, rewired your brain, and you’re never gonna be able to leave that behind and forget it, but it doesn’t mean you secretly wanted it or enjoyed it. And if you were still completely convinced you did, you wouldn’t be here fighting. You’d never have _bothered_ fighting.”

“And they say you’re bad at personal insight,” Bucky says. He promptly slaps a hand over his mouth, expression turning horrified, but Tony starts laughing, eyes bright with amusement.

“They’re right,” he says, “I’m just slightly less terrible at other people.”

Bucky winces anyway. “Sorry.”

Waving it aside, Tony replies, “Heard far worse.”

With a deep breath, Bucky shakes his head—not out of disbelief, but consideration, like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. He pushes away from the table, begins turning toward the door of the lab as if he wants to leave before he can accidentally say something worse, and Tony thinks that’s the end of it. But before he’s even taken a step, Bucky turns to look over his shoulder and repeats, “Thank you anyway. Again.”

Then he’s gone, and Tony watches his retreating form. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the sigh forces its way out of him, and he pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking he should call it a night. Before he can begin to shut everything down, he catches movement behind him, in the shadowy reflection on the glass. He spins to face it, half-expecting another Ultron-esque threat, and instead finds Steve on the unlit catwalk behind the labs, just stepping off the stairs from the lower level.

“Hey, babe,” Tony says as Steve steps through the rear entrance. He doesn’t have to ask how long Steve had been standing below the lab, because he walks right up to Tony and envelops him in a crushing hug.

“Thank you,” he says hoarsely, an unsteady whisper. “Just…thank you.”

Rather than replying, Tony only holds on tighter.

 

**v. where worlds collide and days are dark**

_20 October 2015_ ; _New York, New Avengers facility—location: classified_

A team meeting with the Avengers, particularly one involving SHIELD, can be a lot of things. “Quiet” has never been one of them.

Until now, when nearly sixty seconds have ticked by in silence so thick you could hear the fall of a feather. It’s debatable if anyone has breathed, never mind spoken.

“I’m sorry, you want us to do what?” Tony asks at last. He sounds calm—too calm for comfort for anyone who knows him at all—the kind of calm enforced only by iron will and rigid control.

“I think you should bring the Winter Soldier into the Avengers,” Fury repeats, from his seat at the head of the briefing room’s table. For good measure, he adds, “And Phil agrees.”

Briefly, something that bears a striking resemblance to “don’t drag me into this” flashes across Phil’s face. Then it’s gone, and he nods once, with a glance to the back of the room at Tony. It isn’t often that Fury makes an official appearance at the facility; his preferred domain has always been the Helicarrier, even when he was alive and the Triskelion still stood. Which means, while this isn’t a signed-sealed-and-delivered official order, it’s more than a casual suggestion.

That does exactly nothing to make it any easier. It does, at least, explain why Bucky had returned from his psych appointment in what appeared to be a state of clinical shock, just as the team was walking out the door.

“Is this even possible?” Thor asks. Though his tone is neutral, his expression is dubious, and the ease in his posture that had been there a minute ago is gone. “Legally, that is—your people were shouting for pitchforks when they learned he was in this _country_.”

“Technically, yes,” Phil replies. “The Avengers don’t officially fall under US jurisdiction, and the UN isn’t interested in pursuing the war crimes angle.” Left unsaid is the “anymore”, overridden by but not lost beneath the current of disharmony rippling through the room like an aftershock.

“And unofficially?” Rhodey, this time. For the most part, the soldier-CO formality made habitual by the military is dispensed with when he’s with this team; now it’s back, seeping unconsciously into his speech, though the aggression and anger from their discussion weeks ago is absent, held tightly in check. “Do we have a right to do that? _Should_ we do that?” Anyone else would be avoiding Steve’s eyes like a gorgon’s stare. Rhodey looks straight at him, giving him a look that walks a tightrope between expiating and mercilessly dispassionate.

“Medically, he’s cleared,” Maria offers, carefully objective and placed between the team and Fury as though she were a negotiator. “Any concerns we might have had about his psychological state when he first returned have been addressed, and he’s proven himself to be sound.”

For an uncomfortable seventy-nine seconds, silence reigns; then, to everyone’s surprise, it’s Pietro who speaks. “Is the objection to James Barnes?” he asks bluntly, “or to his actions as Russia’s operative?” He receives no answer, which is answer enough in itself, so he continues, “Then hasn’t he shown where his loyalty lies when the choice is his?”

“Yes,” Phil says, but he doesn’t elaborate.

He’s been in the business long enough, been on the other side of the table often enough, to know that his opinion is the most minuscule fraction of this decision. If the team doesn’t choose Bucky, if the decision is made for them, trusting him to have their backs will be an uphill battle. Steve’s tight-lipped, white-knuckled silence—as he looks anywhere but to Tony at his right—says he’s all too aware of this.

“You gave _us_ a chance,” Wanda says at last, repeating her counter to Steve in that empty lab as she gestures between herself and her brother. They’re the ones who have reacted the least, surprise evident briefly on their faces but body language and demeanor otherwise unchanging. “We heard the rumors back home, about the Soldier,” she acknowledges, “but even without your tests and evaluations, in the short time I have known him I cannot think that Soldier and the James Barnes who has been at the Tower are the same person.

“They share a face, but not a personality, and what he did, he did not only under orders but without _choice_. Pietro and I stood against you all, and we did it knowingly.” She shrugs, looking around the table. “Perhaps we have less blood on our hands, but after another fifty years with Ultron that may no longer have been true. So if we are worthy of a place on this team, why would he not be granted the same?”

\----------

_Manhattan, New York_

The trip back to the Tower is silent, stilted—awkward in a way the atmosphere hasn’t been since that morning after Zagreb in the common room, when Steve had walked into the kitchen without Tony. Sam, with silent apologies to his friends, almost preferred that.

Tony had, in essence, left them all at the door. Of the briefing room, not SHIELD. By claiming he had a board meeting to attend. That boded well for basically no one in the known universe. The moment they’re in the Tower, Steve vanishes, presumably to talk to Bucky. He looks torn between guilt and gratitude; combined with Bucky’s earlier reaction, that’s bound to yield a productive conversation. Sam walks into the gym fifteen minutes later, expecting to have it to himself: Natasha and Clint had remained behind at SHIELD with Thor for a second meeting, on something to do with Thanos and the Infinity Gems. Under normal circumstances, Sam would be concerned about what that implies for the future of the world’s entire existence—he’s heard about the Phase 2 false denials when Manhattan happened. As it stands, their first meeting had presented enough complicating factors.

Unexpectedly, instead of an empty room he finds Rhodey at the weights, benching something on the order of 300 pounds like there’s no tomorrow. Without bothering to comment on the wisdom—or, rather, the lack thereof—of doing that without a spotter, Sam just steps in to fill without so much as a by your leave. They switch off, doing a couple sets each, then go three rounds of sparring. It isn’t until Rhodey lobs a liter bottle of water at his head before they step outside to the benches on the terrace that either of them bothers to speak.

Sam twists the cap off his bottle and observes, “You look about how I feel.”

Officially, this space is designated for an outdoor gym, at least according to Tony and the Tower’s blueprints. Sam had seen the mock-ups of the treadmills, designed with the same hidden tech that removed the armor on the penthouse balcony. While the entire setup fell unequivocally under “fucking awesome”, it’s been unfortunately relegated to a backseat thanks to the general chaos that’s dogged their heels like hellhounds. A few people have used the space for yoga or tai chi in good weather, or brought some mats out for hand-to-hand drills, but its predominant role at the moment is providing a conveniently close place to collapse on a flat surface and down water post-workout. Or, in this case, find a flat surface and try to work out the cognitive hamster wheel while downing water post-workout. Close enough.

Rhodey’s got that thousand-yard stare as he looks out over the city at the late afternoon sun and sees exactly none of it, but he turns his head enough to see Sam. “Yeah, something like that.”

Shifting his weight back to prop himself up on one hand, Sam shakes his head. “This feels stupid,” he says flatly. “I helped them _find_ the guy, for christ’s sake.”

“And yet it still feels like standing by while they award the Medal of Honor to a traitor,” Rhodey finishes for him quietly.

It had taken Sam an awkward three weeks _after_ they’d both formally signed with team—translation: approximately two months after they’d arrived at the new facility post-Sokovia—to stop reflexively calling Rhodey “sir” or “Colonel” and treating him like his superior officer. Rhodey had ultimately conceded, which he evidently defined as altogether too cheerfully dumping Sam flat on his ass four times in a row during a sparring session. Then he’d just as cheerfully informed him, “You’re retired, on this team I don’t outrank you, and I _work_ for a living. So for the love of god stop calling me ‘sir’!” At which point Rhodey had handed him a beer, and that had been the end of that.

Now Sam just draws his hand down his face like he’s trying to clear away cobwebs, sighing and thinking that a beer, or perhaps a bottle of bourbon, would be greatly appreciated at the current moment. “I can’t count the number of people I’ve seen at the VA, never mind the number of soldiers _on my teams_ , who did something they regret in the fog of war, or got blindsided with PTSD and hit the breaking point before the diagnosis.” He shakes his head again, as though the action itself will shake something loose. “Hell, I’ve been in my share of FUBARed missions, I get it. And I’ve spoken to Barnes; I’ve spoken to Steve; even Tony’s been supportive, and if anyone has reason to protest, it’s him. I _know_ Barnes is a good man.”

Turning to face him with an expression that’s all too knowing, Rhodey agrees, “Which feels like it should be enough, except it isn’t.” He drums his fingers against the seat of the bench, a faint thudding against the fabric that’s barely audible over the noise of the city in spite of the three hundred some feet between them and the streets.

“Did you know?” he asks.

Sam considers dissembling, considers asking, “Did I know what?”; hell, he considers outright lying. In the end, though, he says, “Yes.” Then he says, “No.”

When Rhodey turns to give him a strange look, eyebrows raised as if to ask if their sparring had left Sam concussed, Sam explains. “I knew there was something going on, back when we were still combing through intel. At first I thought it was Steve—I mean, I’d be pretty fucking freaked out if Riley showed up after seventy years of supposedly being dead and tried to kill me—but then I chalked it up to Howard Stark and the war and…all of that.”

He shrugs. “I missed the actual intel on the Soldier killing the Starks—that I found out with the rest of you. It just helped some things fall into place.”

Hesitating, Rhodey shoots him a sidelong glance, like he’s weighing the words before he speaks them. “Would you have gone if you’d known?”

“Yes,” Sam answers, immediately and without reservation, repeating his reply to Steve after that disaster of a meeting: “Second chances are rare, and I wouldn’t have stood in the way of theirs. If Barnes had gone and slaughtered the Starks just because he could, that’d be different, but he was an operative on assignment, and we weren’t technically looking for that guy.”

“Technically,” Rhodey echoes dubiously.

Again, Sam shrugs, a little self-consciously. “I see Steve with Barnes and can’t help seeing myself with Riley. You can rationalize pretty much anything.”

“I’ll give you that,” Rhodey says with a snort, leaning back on his hands as he shakes his head. “Barnes has a higher kill count even than Romanov. They’re— _Fury’s_ —proposing we bring someone who’s been programmed to be a killing machine for seventy years onboard a team of superheroes. I’m trying to rationalize that against him murdering my best friend’s parents, and it’s just…not working. Maybe you and I aren’t enhanced,” he adds, gesturing between himself and Sam, “and most of us don’t have spotless records by any standard of measurement, but this feels too much like…like sleeping with the enemy.”

“Yes,” Sam says after a moment. “They’re handing us a dossier on the Winter Soldier and saying he should be a part of this team. I’m one of the people who signed off on him for active duty and I’m still not sure what to make of that.” Sighing, he lets his head fall forward, making a study of the shadows playing down the side of the building as the sun shifts position in the sky.

“The problem is, I knew all that back in DC when the shit hit the fan, and much as I think sometimes that we should just hang the Soldier off a bridge, James Barnes is a different story.” He laughs, harsh and bitter. “And despite everything I just said, objectively recognizing a difference between what he’s done of his own free will and what he’s done when he had no control over his own mind is a hell of a lot different than unquestionably trusting him to watch my six.”

Where anyone else might demur, call it an unduly harsh assessment, Rhodey simply nods. “There’s brainwashing, and then there’s…whatever this is. And they kind of left ‘How to Fight Magic Wars 101’ out of the curriculum in Basic.”

Sam exhales on a faint huff of amusement, and he doesn’t miss the careful look he gets in response.

“We’ve all lost people in combat,” the colonel adds, softer this time. “It just somehow doesn’t seem to stick with the metahumans, or whatever we’re calling them this week.”

Slowly, Sam nods. “I think of how far I’d go if I were in Steve’s shoes,” he admits quietly, “if I had that chance to get my best friend back. I can’t begrudge him that, but even if this weren’t the most confusing case of guilt in the history of crime, I can’t help thinking death for these guys is a temporary state of being, not an _end_. Maybe they don’t have a guarantee, but we never even get the option.” They’re getting off-topic, and it’s a thought he hasn’t once voiced aloud since he first became aware of what kind of war, exactly, was being fought beyond the Middle East, in large part because it’s one of which he’s not terribly proud. He’s half convinced Rhodey’s going to railroad him for daring to mention it now.

Instead, the only thing he hears in answer is sympathy. “And when you have to think of it like that, even knowing what they had to go through to get that chance doesn’t exactly make it any easier.”

His tone is resigned, reflexive in a manner that suggests it’s occurred to him before, at length. Somehow it serves to make Sam feel simultaneously relieved to have company, and guilty for even entertaining it as a thought. All he says aloud is, rhetorically, “You’d think it would, wouldn’t you?”

Rhodey’s only response is a one-shouldered shrug, a minute nod, and a return to downing the rest of his water bottle. Since Sam can’t dredge up a better reply, he does the same.

 

**vi. painting with shadows all the marble steps**

_20 October 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Tony’s been the CEO of Stark Industries since he was seventeen. Though he’s been required on paper to attend board meetings since then, it really only became routine after he was done with his doctorates and no longer had the excuse of sequestering himself in Cambridge at MIT. Even then, he’d left most of that side of management to Obie until Afghanistan, and has been inventing increasingly creative excuses to avoid them—some more successful than others—since his parents died. He can count on one hand the number of meetings at which he’s manifestly given a damn.

Today is one of them.

He doesn’t miss the looks Pepper shoots him, an odd (if justified) convergence of suspicion and sympathy and grudgingly abated strain. He doesn’t miss the looks the board members shoot each other when they think his attention is elsewhere, though they appear to be limited to confusion; idly, he wonders why they’re even _on_ the board to begin with if that’s the extent of their out-of-the-box thinking. But he remarks on none of that, instead throwing himself into the meeting with the same single-minded thoroughness he usually applies to engineering specs. If everyone else present chooses to take it as an omen of the apocalypse, he has bigger things to worry about.

The entire affair still feels tedious and interminable, but not interminable enough, because it does eventually end. He makes a break for the doors to avoid Pepper’s interrogation, because he in no way has the wherewithal for that conversation right now, and takes the most tortuous, meandering route back to the Tower he can conjure. If it involves driving the length of Long Island a few times and seriously contemplating making his way into Jersey for a detour, well, there’s no one to remain as witness except JARVIS.

When at last he finally does arrive home, it’s dark out, less than an hour past sunset. His thoughts are a jumble, flummoxing even to himself, and company is so far down his list of priorities it may as well not exist. Objectively, he knows he should at least pass through the common area in case anyone’s there, if only out of courtesy: this isn’t just _his_ problem. But he lacks the energy for diplomacy—and possesses sufficient self-awareness to be wary of what might come out of his mouth without a filter—so he takes the easy way out, going straight from the garage to the penthouse. He fully intends to hole up in the workshop for the foreseeable future (or at least until tomorrow), but he wants to ditch this suit almost as much as he wants to be rid of this Bucky consideration altogether. Except none of that has a chance to happen, because when the elevator doors open and he steps into his foyer, it’s to the sight of Steve sitting on the sofa reading like it’s any other Tuesday evening. The way he looks up as soon he hears the chime of the elevator makes it clear that he’s been waiting for Tony, and he sets the book aside before coming to his feet, making his way around to the hallway.

“Hey,” he says, his trajectory meaning he meets Tony about halfway. His tone is easy, his expression warm, but there’s a note of deliberate caution in his body language, as though he’s uncertain of his welcome. “How was the meeting?” he asks.

Tony knows it’s a bullshit question. He also welcomes any excuse to avoid addressing the real one, so he goes with it as he heads down the hall into the bedroom. “Long and boring,” he replies, shooting a minuscule grin over his shoulder in an effort to convey that Steve’s welcome to follow.

He does, leaning against the doorjamb of the walk-in closet; but he keeps his body angled away from the wall to avoid boxing Tony in. There’s a moment of almost tangible hesitation, and then he asks, “Are you okay?”

The habitual, flip answer is chambered and ready on his tongue before he’s fully aware of it, but Tony draws in a deep breath and swallows it down, buying himself time as he hangs up his belt and swaps his slacks for jeans. He isn’t of the mind that he owes a whole plethora of people much of anything on this subject, but Steve isn’t just “people”. If he doesn’t deserve an honest answer, no one does.

“I’ve been better,” Tony admits at last, “but I’ve been worse, too.” He shrugs, focusing on unbuttoning his shirt to avoid meeting Steve’s eyes. “I could have done without Fury blindsiding us today, but I probably should have seen it coming.”

When he emerges from the well-worn Black Sabbath t-shirt he pulls over his head, he finds Steve’s stepped beyond the doorway right into his space, reaching out to grip Tony’s shoulders. “I—” He bites off whatever he was about to say, the touch of viciousness in the motion visible only because he’s literally right in Tony’s face. “I’m sorry.”

Huffing out a low laugh, Tony reaches up, wrapping his hands around Steve’s wrists to soften any perceived blow. “I know,” he says, squeezing gently. “It’s not your fault.” Because no matter the measure of bitterness in his bloodstream or the queasiness roiling in his gut, he knows with equal certainty that Steve is not the one responsible.

“I asked you to bring him here.”

“Technically, you didn’t ask me for anything,” Tony points out all too reasonably—if he’s rational enough, he tells himself, maybe it’ll sever the emotional reaction (he’s always been good at attempting wishful thinking). “I’ve offered, and I’m not rescinding any of those offers now.”

Steve peers at him, expression searching and uncertain; then he takes a deep breath and says carefully, “Do you want to?”

Tony opens his mouth, then shuts it again, sighing. “Sometimes,” he admits eventually, anticipating Steve’s flinch and hating himself for it all the same, “but mostly no.”

Steve swallows hard, and Tony sighs again, releases his grip on Steve’s wrists to close the distance between them and pull him into a hug instead. “This isn’t—I just have to get used to it.” He’s not sure which of them he’s trying to convince, but he leans against Steve’s shoulder as he speaks, taking advantage of his solid warmth; Steve presses closer. “It’s not your fault, or mine, or Bucky’s, anymore than it is Fury’s, though if you ever tell him I said that I will deny it to my grave.”

Voice muffled by the fabric of Tony’s shirt, Steve says, “I’d say I’m sorry again, but it feels like all I’ve done for the past nine months is apologize, and it’s not like that’s done anyone any fucking good.”

“Hey,” Tony says, soothingly tranquil in a way he doesn’t entirely feel but wants— _needs_ —Steve to believe, “don’t.” Drawing one hand up Steve’s back, he lets it come to rest at the nape of his neck, fingers carding through his short hair. “You didn’t do this, any of this. You’re trying to help your best friend; if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be you. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Steve continues to tell Tony’s shirt, “but thank you for saying it anyway.”

Tony can hear the amusement laced through his own voice as he replies, “Have you _met_ me?” and gets a hoarse laugh in reply. When Steve finally pulls away, Tony stops him long enough to kiss him. “I was going to head down to the workshop for a bit, if you want to come with.”

“Do you mind?”

“Would I have offered if I did?” Tony retorts, and Steve actually smiles this time.

But when they emerge into the living room, in place of an empty floor they find Bucky standing by the elevators, looking as uncomfortable as a kid called to the principal’s office. If the wide-eyed, rather pale look that’s appeared on Steve’s face is any indication, Bucky’s presence is as unexpected to him as it is to Tony.

Before either of them can speak, however, Bucky beats them to it. “I didn’t know they were going to ask—at all, not just today,” he blurts out. “If you want me to say no, I will.” His right hand is shaking, but his voice remains level in spite of his haste, and he meets Tony’s gaze unflinchingly.

Startled, Tony says nothing, caught off guard and left staring at Bucky while he tries to formulate a coherent answer. Because of that, he sees the moment when wariness cedes to resignation and Bucky turns to leave; because of that, Tony stops him, finding his voice again. “Don’t make that decision on my account,” he says. “I appreciate the consideration, trust me, and I can’t say I was exactly thrilled at how Fury dropped it on us, but don’t worry about me. Whether you decide to join the team and fight, or never touch a weapon again and retire to the country to go raise sheep or something, no one’s going to hold it against you.”

Bucky looks distinctly unconvinced, so Tony offers him an attempt at a smile—even if it’s as weak as it feels, at least it’s sincere. “Sheep?” Bucky asks after a beat, and Tony shrugs wryly.

Then he sobers, looking Bucky dead in the eye. “Will you be okay if you do?”

Opening his mouth, Bucky starts to say, “Ye—” and promptly cuts himself off in confusion. At his side, Tony can feel Steve’s puzzlement. “I’m sorry?” he asks finally, as though he thinks he’s misheard the question.

Sighing, Tony drags a hand through his hair and tries to come up with a better way to phrase it. He can hardly fault them for their surprise—this isn’t how he’d thought the conversation was going to go, either—but now that he’s said it, he can’t help wondering if anyone’s thought to ask _Bucky_ if he wants this.

“You’ve been working to _not_ be the Winter Soldier for almost a year,” he tries again, focusing on keeping his tone gentle, level, not remotely accusatory. “Are you willing to voluntarily take up that role again, whether or not you change your codename, even if your job description is different?”

Again, surprise flashes sharp and bright through Bucky’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he admits after a moment. “But I signed up to serve my country once; I like to think the answer is yes, have a chance to prove that…” He trails off, gesturing vaguely in an attempt to convey a sentiment he doesn’t entirely know how to articulate. “That the codename wasn’t everything,” he concludes, “that I’m more than what they made.”

Tony nods, just once; he has no room to throw stones here even if he’d wanted to, but he doesn’t. Of all people, he understands this sentiment far too well. “I’m not going to lie and tell you I’m perfectly happy with this idea, but if this is something you want to do, I’ll support it. You aren’t accountable to anybody except yourself on this one. Go with the decision that’ll let you be able to look yourself in the eye.”

Drawing in a slow, deep breath, Bucky shakes his head with not a little disbelief, blue eyes wide. “I—” He cuts himself off, begins again. “Whatever I was expecting you to say, that…didn’t make the list.”

Tony shrugs. “What can I say, I’m full of surprises,” he deadpans.

Leaning in to brush their shoulders together, Steve agrees. “Yeah,” he says softly, not a hint of sarcasm present in his voice, “you kind of are.”

 

**vii. the wandering earth herself may be (only a sudden flaming word)**

_7 November 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

“I’m getting a refill,” Maria says, pushing herself up off the couch. “Want me to top yours off?”

With a grateful smile, Natasha holds her wineglass out and nods. “Thanks.” Tilting her head back until she’s basically staring at Maria upside down, she adds, “I don’t understand how you have the energy to stand up right now.”

The week had been three back-to-back operations that took them from Tokyo to Seattle to Berlin, and absolutely no one is doing much of anything today. Hell, she’s impressed that Maria managed to summon up the energy to leave her quarters and take the elevator up a floor to knock on Natasha’s door. Since then, though, they haven’t done anything more active than collapsing on the sofa and idly watching the TLC shows Natasha marathons on days when she’s too tired to think but would deny she enjoys to her deathbed. Fifteen minutes ago, they’d managed to catch the start of _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_ , which Maria sheepishly admits is one of her go-tos on miserable days. Upon learning Natasha had never seen it, she’d promptly insisted they remedy that.

Since Maria’s arrival just before noon, they’ve progressed from coffee to wine and ordered dinner up from the Italian restaurant in the commercial section of the Tower. That’s about as strenuous as their day’s gotten. Then again, after the week they’ve had, Natasha can’t even bring herself to feel guilty about it; from the look of things, she doubts Maria (or anyone else, if the relative silence in the Tower is any indication) does, either.

“The alcohol won,” the other woman calls back, returning a moment later with the stems of both glasses between her fingers and a newly-opened wine bottle in her other hand. She sets the latter on the coffee table and hands one of the glasses back to Natasha, who laughs.

“Okay, I can’t argue with that.”

She moves her feet just enough to allow Maria room to flop back onto the sofa, before resettling them across her friend’s lap. Then, a moment and a sip of wine later, she looks up at Maria, head tipped slightly to the right. “Holy hell,” she says, mildly, like she’s making a mundane observation about the weather. “I think we’re idiots. Because I’m pretty sure we’re dating.”

Maria blinks slowly at her, looks down to where her free hand rests on Natasha’s ankle, then back up, and starts to smile. Just as slowly, a smile blossoms across her face “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are.”

\----------

 _3 April 2002_ ; _Swiss SHIELD field office—location: classified_

“Agent Romanov, this is Agent Hill,” Fury says, gesturing toward a petite brunette with military-precise bearing as he locks down the SCIF. “You two will be working together on Operation Sekhmet.”

Picking up one of the folders laid out across the table, Natasha spares the briefest of nods in Hill’s direction and raises an eyebrow at their boss. “Sekhmet, really? Wrong country.”

Fury shrugs. “They were running out of names, what can I say.” He flips another folder open—these types of briefings tend not to go digital; they are, for that matter, lucky to have anything written down at all. “You’re both familiar with Jemaah Islamiyah.” It’s a statement, not a question, but both she and Hill nod anyway. “There’s been a lot of chatter in the last few weeks, and we have reason to believe they’ve got a group of foreign aid workers held hostage near the mountains behind Ampana.”

“Hostages?” Natasha repeats dubiously. “Their strategy’s usually blow something up, make a point, not…this.”

“They’re also looking to be noticed,” Hill points out, “and as far as the IC’s been able to find, there’s not a whole lot that’s strategically relevant in that city—certainly not enough to justify JI’s attention.”

“There is absolutely no one who’s been read in on this who disagrees with you,” Fury replies, and out of the corner of her eye Natasha catches the bemused look Hill shoots her way.

Sighing, she shakes her head and mutters under her breath, “Analysts—they smell a rose and look for a funeral.” Fury snorts in amusement.

Hill stifles a laugh and asks, “Then why are we meeting in a SCIF in a neutral country?”

“Actually,” Natasha breaks in, “why are we involved in this at all? The US alone has reps there from DOD, State, and half the military, and it’s not like they’re without allies in the region—if nothing else, this should be going to a joint task force.”

In answer, Fury gives them both a flat look. “To answer both your questions, politics. Right now we’ve managed to keep this away from the news outlets—don’t ask me how, I don’t know and don’t particularly care at the moment—and the IC at large wants a very small extraction team to go in and, if they can’t get the hostages out, at least get a better assessment of the situation.”

Shaking her head as though she already knows the answer (she probably does; they both do), Hill interjects, “Let me guess: Romanov and I are the extraction team.”

“Knew I hired you for a reason,” Fury replies blandly. “Look, I’m not any happier about this than you are—I think it’s a damned stupid plan, but every country with people involved in this are fully immersed in cover-your-ass mode. You’ll have remote backup you’ll meet when you land, plus two teams out of SOCOM and our spec ops guys waiting on Apaches. But the closest they’ll be is ten minutes out, and that’s a generous estimate. Officially, their primary purpose is to help you remove the hostages from the site; anything more and we cause an international incident on top of an international incident.”

Natasha shakes her head, eyes skimming over the contents of the folder. “They couldn’t just go to the beach like everyone else?” she grumbles, and Hill snorts.

“Apparently vacations are overrated.”

“Yes they are,” Fury agrees, deadpan. “There’s a jet waiting to fly you into Poso, and there will be a team to drive you the rest of the way in—it’s not exactly a short ride. You’ll get all five minutes of the rest of the briefing on the plane, and ops has a rough outline of a tactical plan for you two to rip apart.” Pushing himself to his feet, he nods at the folders they’re both still holding. “You have another eight minutes; lock those in the safe before you leave.”

He sweeps out of the room, and Natasha glances over at her new partner, setting her papers on the table. “I’ll be right back,” she says, and Hill nods.

Outside, Fury’s standing in the hallway just out of earshot, as if he’d been waiting for her (he probably had). “Really?” she demands without preamble. “We’re so understaffed you’re sending a rookie who doesn’t even have nine months in the field on a high-risk op.” If she sounds incredulous, it’s because she is.

“I know,” he says, holding up a hand. “But I’d probably have put her on this even if 9/11 hadn’t stretched every country a little thin. She’s good.”

“So are a lot of agents,” she counters, “but I wouldn’t have them as my backup on an extraction like this—given a choice I’d go in solo. Did Barton and May and Coulson all manage to fall down a well or something?”

“May is on your tactical team, where she needs to be; Coulson’s running the op; and Barton doesn’t know the region. Hill does—she did her year abroad based out of Jakarta—and her Academy scores are only third in line after yours.”

Sighing, Natasha runs a hand through her hair, illogically thinking she really needs to get it cut again. Technically, she doesn’t _have_ Academy scores, but she doesn’t bother pointing that out. “You know I trust you, but you’re asking a lot.”

“Yes, I am,” he agrees, “and if you die you can tell me ‘I told you so’, but I wouldn’t have given her this assignment if I thought she couldn’t back you up.”

“If I die,” she counters, “you owe me that bottle of Kors Gold.” She pauses for a moment, reconsiders: “Actually, you owe me that even if I live.” Without waiting for a response, she heads back to the SCIF and shuts the door behind her. Hill hasn’t moved from her earlier position at the table and is studiously not looking at her.

“You heard that,” Natasha says; again, statement rather than question.

“Yes.” That she doesn’t bother lying brings Natasha’s opinion of her up a notch.

“Good.”

Head coming up sharply this time, Hill stares at her, blue eyes wary and not a little surprised. “Excuse me?”

Taking the chair to the other woman’s left and pulling a handful of files closer, Natasha doesn’t so much as take her eyes off the paperwork. “The door was open; your new partner just left to talk to the director without you. I doubt you thought I had decided now was a good time to discuss my pension plan. I’d have been disappointed if you _hadn’t_ eavesdropped.”

Hill opens her mouth, then shuts it again without speaking. “Thank you, I think,” she says at last.

“How are your language skills?”

Looking a little relieved to be back on familiar ground, Hill answers, “Fluent in Indonesian, Javanese, and Sudanese; passably functional in Betawi, if a little rusty. I’m also fluent in Arabic.”

Natasha nods once, approvingly. “Between the two of us we’re covered for most of the languages we’re likely to run into.”

They spend a few more minutes going through the files, and then Natasha closes hers, pushing her chair away from the table as she stands. Beside her, Hill does the same, then holds her hand out like a peace offering and says, “You’re something of a legend, Agent Romanov.”

Natasha shakes it, inclining her head in the barest of nods. “I try to live up to it, Agent Hill.” Then she grins and adds, “Now let’s go earn that bottle of vodka.”

\----------

 _5 April 2002_ ; _Ampana, Indonesia_

“Final comms check,” Natasha says, an hour before they’re set to move in.

“All clear, Widow,” Phil replies. “Waiting on your signal.”

The area is less than ideal for any sort of covert operation, if by “less than ideal” what you really mean is, “you are absolutely fucked ten ways to Sunday”. They’re currently behind an empty building that looks like it used to be some sort of storage facility, approximately seven hundred yards off from where the hostages are being held. As far as their intel can discern, at least half of them are in the building while the other half are tied up against the perimeter fence. Unfortunately, at the rear edge of the city away from the tourist areas, there’s not a lot available in the way of buildings or any other functional barriers, largely because not that many people live in this part of the city. Combine that with the desert in April and you end up with no cover whatsoever for your entire approach; it would be easier and far less exhausting to just hang targets around their necks and walk out with their hands up.

“What I wouldn’t give for a sniper,” Natasha mutters.

What few freestanding structures _are_ scattered around them are too low profile for a sharpshooter to be able to set up and remain unseen by the terrorists. While they could in theory set a nest on the ground, the distance necessary to stay invisible is impractical, and a ground-level shooter in this environment isn’t likely to be that much use anyway. She and Hill are on their own.

“Or nightfall,” Hill agrees, sarcasm heavy in her voice.

Given the lack of cover available, they’d normally wait at least for sunset, but they’d had eyes on their targets for a bare three minutes before realizing the terrorists were on a—pun unintended—hair trigger. No ransom demand or public statement has been issued, so either they’re waiting for something or they were just in the mood to scare the shit out of someone. Regardless of which it is, the same politicians who’d put Nat and Hill on the ground instead of a joint task force are getting nervous; when they get nervous, they get pushy; so daylight and higher-than-reasonable risk it is.

After a few minutes—they are almost literally killing time right now, waiting for the next guard rotation—Hill asks, “SHIELD doesn’t really assign codenames, so how did you end up with yours?”

“I brought it with me,” Natasha answers. When Hill shoots her a questioning look in response, she elucidates. “I was the Black Widow before I was even on SHIELD’s radar; it was given to me in Russia. The Chechen _shahidka_ are women whose husbands or brothers have been killed in terrorist attacks, and it’s not uncommon for them to become suicide bombers. They bombed three sites in and around Moscow in seven months, so my directorate sent me undercover as one of them. The name stuck, and now the Red Room girls are taught to treat it like a title they should aspire to steal.”

She sounds a little bitter and she knows it, but there’s something incredibly perverse about the situation that she wishes she could stop. While the attacks are rare, killing women sent after her solely to prove they are better than the traitor Natalia Romanova is not what she signed up for. With any agency.

Before Hill can respond, there’s a faint noise behind them, barely louder than a whisper of wind. If there had been any wind to begin with, it might have gone unnoticed. Natasha’s on her feet before Hill’s had time to blink; then she’s got a blond man a few inches taller than she is facedown on the ground, his arm twisted up behind him and her sidearm pressed against the back of his neck.

“SHIELD,” she growls in his ear, settling her knee against his spine and her weight squarely above him. “So much as twitch and I will shoot you.” Carefully out of arm’s reach, Hill has her own service-issue trained on his head in case he gets any ideas.

“Hang on, I’m on your side!” he yelps, loudly enough to be heard but not so loud that his voice carries.

“The hell you are,” Natasha says. “Nothing is this convenient.”

“I swear,” he says to the dirt. “Name’s Bond. James Bond. I’m SIS.”

Raising her eyebrows, Natasha looks up at Hill with poorly disguised humor. “Is that supposed to be intimidating?” she comments. “What if I started doing that? Rushman. Natalie Rushman.”

Hill purses her lips, considers that for a second without so much as batting an eye at the new cover. “Nah, too many syllables,” she replies. “It’s all in the surname, really.”

“This is fabulous, I’m going to die,” the man says. The dried blade of grass in front of his face is quite callously unsympathetic.

“Base, do you read?” Natasha says, and Coulson responds almost immediately. “I have a James Bond, claiming he’s an SIS operative,” she continues then. “You know anything about this?”

“No, hang on.” A few seconds later, Coulson comes back to add, as if it’s an afterthought, “Don’t shoot him. Yet.”

Leaning up against the wall without ever moving her sights off the stranger, Hill nods in the direction of the Celebes Sea. “You know, there’s supposed to be an excellent seafood restaurant on the coast that I never got to try.”

“We should go, after this,” Natasha suggests casually. She sounds for all the world as if they’re in a skyscraper board room and not the middle of nowhere in Indonesia with a mission on one side and a potential threat in their lap.

“Works for me. They make this fantastic drink around here, and while I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what the hell’s in it, it’s…very alcoholic.”

“Tell me,” the man says, “are you _all_ this mental?”

Natasha huffs at him, utterly unimpressed. “I thought you Brits were known for good tradecraft,” she says. “Don’t they tell you to not antagonize people who hold guns to your head?”

All she gets in answer is a groan.

Later, they’ll learn that Phil had cut the comm link to them and promptly phoned Fury, who in turn went straight to the horse’s mouth and called the head of SIS. Three minutes of equivocating later, Fury had given up on anything resembling courtesy and simply shouted, “So help me god, you either confirm he’s one of yours, or two of mine are going to shoot him!” In the end, Phil gets back on the line and says, “He is who he says he is, you can…stop doing whatever it is you’re doing to restrain him.”

Climbing off his back, Natasha releases her hold on him as she and Maria both holster their guns. He pushes himself to his feet, making a futile attempt to brush himself off in a dignified manner while he eyes them both like they’re cobras waiting to strike.

“Agents Romanov and Hill,” she says by way of introduction, gesturing at herself, then her partner.

“So, are we settled?”

“Insofar as I know your name,” Natasha replies. “But I’d love to know what the hell you’re doing in the middle of my operation.”

With a put-upon sigh, he scrubs his hand over his face. “I was in India on another assignment when I got word about this.” He nods in the direction of the hostages. “A couple of the aid workers are British, and so here I am.”

Natasha glances over at Hill, who shrugs and suggests, “Keep him and we can send him out first.”

He just stares, wordlessly, and Natasha bites back a smile. “Do you have a plan?”

That stare shifts from Maria to Natasha; then, “I’ve been here an hour; it took me forty-five minutes to find them.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Glancing overhead, then at her watch, she says, “We move in twenty-two minutes, when the guards change shifts. If you stay, this is my op.”

Again, he sighs, shaking his head. “Done; I am not arguing with you people. What’s your plan to cover the approach?”

“They’re thankfully inattentive when they do this,” Hill replies. “We’ll hit that building first.” She nods at a three-sided enclosure that barely qualifies as a building. “From there we’re close enough to move in before they notice. Move fast; stay low; and ideally we won’t have to start shooting until we know the hostages inside are clear.”

“Ideally,” he repeats, and she rolls her eyes.

“I didn’t say it was likely,” she points out. “There’s a window—no glass—on the far side. I think you’ll fit.”

“…Thank you,” he says sardonically.

Twenty minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, their plan has unsurprisingly gone to shit. Technical term. A bullet comes flying past her head, and Natasha swears rather creatively in Russian; beside her, pressed flat against the wall with her gun at low ready, Hill quirks an eyebrow at her. “I don’t think that’s anatomically possible, Romanov,” she says.

“If we get out of here alive remind me to prove you wrong,” Natasha shoots back, twisting to work her way around the corner.

The gap between them and the hostages is now a much more manageable, if not preferable, three-hundred-some yards, and Natasha glances back at them. “Either of you play baseball?” she asks.

“Was a pitcher in college for a bit,” Hill replies, just as Bond says, “No.”

Pulling three smoke grenades from her belt, Natasha hands them to Hill. “Take these, get yours, and throw them as close to the front of the fenceline as you can.”

“You must be joking,” Bond says, as if she’d suggested Hill use the grenades to summon a dragon, and she raises an eyebrow.

“If you’ve a better suggestion I’d love to hear it. Otherwise, cross your fingers the wind doesn’t suddenly appear and we get maybe two seconds of cover.” He says nothing, so she looks at Hill, trading her Sig for the MP5 around her neck. “I’ll cover you—say when.”

A beat; then, “When.”

The next five minutes, if they weren’t so heavily classified as to practically not exist, would probably have qualified for the next edition of _Ripley’s Believe It Or Not_. They’re three against seven, with at least sixteen hostages, and smoke grenades out in the open generally fall under the category of “useless” at best and “suicidal” at worst. But as far as they can tell by the shouting, one of the guards outside is the younger brother of one of the two men inside the building itself. Natasha putting a round through said younger brother’s neck gets the elder’s attention pretty fast and enrages him enough to step out the door. She shoots him, too.

Bond goes in through the window to take out the second man inside—to whom it evidently never occurred to start killing hostages; thank god for stupid criminals—shoots the one who appears in the doorway, and they make fast work of the other three as Natasha calls in to base. The helos are touching down twelve minutes later, just as they’re bringing the last aid worker out. Miraculously, there’s only one serious injury, a gunshot wound that looks like it fractured the humerus; the others are mostly shaken up and dehydrated with some cuts and bruises. One flight heads for a hospital, and the other gets the SHIELD team back to base, Bond accompanying them.

“You didn’t even make us work for it,” Melinda May says with mock disappointment. “I thought we trained you better than that.”

“Oh god,” Bond says for the umpteenth time, and Phil outright grins at him as though he’s about to start laughing; Hill’s double-take couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d turned into a chupacabra on the spot. “Do you _intentionally_ hire terrifying, insane women?”

“Nah, we’re just lucky,” Phil replies, and Bond just groans. “You have transport back, or would you like to—”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he interrupts a little too quickly, and Natasha almost pulls a muscle trying to keep a straight face.

Six hours later, they’re on the Helicarrier somewhere over the Arabian Sea. Once they’ve wrapped up their debrief, Natasha heads back to her quarters. On the side table is a bottle of Kors Vodka Gold, with a post-it attached to it that says in Fury’s handwriting, “Now we’re even,” emphatically underlined three times. Natasha’s faint smirk becomes a smile, until finally she succumbs to precisely one moment of triumphant laughter.

Five minutes later, she knocks on Hill’s door, and the other woman looks faintly startled when she answers. “Agent Romanov. Did we forget something?”

“No,” Natasha replies, holding up a small paper bag. “Mind if I come in?”

Hill starts, then steps back enough for her to pass. “Of course.”

When the door closes, Natasha asks, “Do you drink?”

“Yes, but—”

“Perfect.” She pulls two shot glasses out of the bag along with the bottle of vodka, and Hill’s eyes widen. “I told you we had to earn this—I would dearly love to see Fury’s justification for a sixteen thousand dollar bottle of vodka, assuming he even put it in as an expense,” Natasha says with a grin, then pours them both a shot. “Nice work on this one,” she adds as she holds one of the tiny glasses out to Hill, who dips her head in a nod.

“Thank you, Agent Romanov.”

“Natasha,” she says, and clinks their glasses together.

\----------

_7 November 2015_

Tipping her head slightly to the right, Natasha gives Maria a long, assessing look, the lines around her mouth and eyes deepening as she thinks. “Huh.” After a minute, she blows out a breath, her whole face relaxing into a smile. “Somehow I’m not panicking about that as much as you’d expect.”

“Neither am I,” Maria replies, and her answering smile is sweet and warm. “We good?”

Slowly, Natasha nods. “Really good.” She’s fractionally surprised to find she even means that, in its entirety—which, in a life either built on or requiring lie upon lie, is a rare thing. She’s been operating on low energy all day, but the lassitude takes on a lighter, easier quality; she realizes after a beat that it’s just happiness.

In hindsight, they both make their living in a profession where misreading body language can get you killed: one or both of them should have figured this out a long time ago. Perhaps they’d come to a tacit settlement on professionalism for a while, mostly limiting their interactions to work—plus, Natasha learning to so much as consider anything as extreme as friendship was still a process yet to truly begin. But post-Battle of Manhattan, Maria had already been Deputy for going on four years, and while Natasha had still been SHIELD she’d been considered an Avenger first. Even if none of that had been true, aliens falling from a hole in the sky merited a lot of off-hour drinking pretty much throughout the agency; you can only have the “holy fucking aliens what the hell, I actually miss organized crime and human trafficking and this is a sad, sad statement on life” conversation so many times before everyone has the script memorized.

Then the agency to which they’d both given significant portions of their lives fell to pieces, and a few months later they ended up living in the same place. As the only women in rooms full of men until Carol, Jane, and Betty made their arrivals, she and Maria had found themselves gravitating toward one another. They’d drawn Pepper into their orbit over food and wine and sparring sessions, despite the circumstances under which she and Natasha had met, though unlike them she kept a more conventional work schedule. With Maria’s floor conveniently below Natasha’s, more often than not that meant Natasha would wake to find Maria cooking breakfast in her kitchen and going through the morning intelligence bulletins, or they’d wind up on Maria’s sofa, analyzing a fight or reading reports or indulging in guilty-pleasure television.

Since not long after SHIELD broke apart, trading justice for Nazis, they had unintentionally become a constant in one another’s lives, more so than they already had been. After all the berating they’ve given the boys about oblivion, they really should have realized this sooner.

Maria runs her thumb across Natasha’s ankle, goosebumps rising in the wake of her touch as something bright and new sparks to life in her belly. She glances down at Maria’s hand, then up at her face, her lips, and there’s a sudden flash of heat in Maria’s eyes. “So,” she says casually—too casually—her voice nearly an octave lower than normal.

“So,” Natasha replies, her smile turning wicked. “I think we’ve been missing out on a lot of things while we were being completely stupid about this.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Maria concurs with a sage nod. “Should we make up for lost time?”

Not bothering to answer verbally, Natasha sets her glass on the table and moves in before the sentence is actually finished. Less than five seconds later, both their glasses have been discarded in favor of Natasha straddling Maria’s thighs, hands resting gently on her shoulders.

“Still good?” she asks, because this isn’t a mission, and Maria isn’t a mark. She’s been close to her partners before—Clint and Bucky, namely, but in a career as long as hers they were hardly the only ones—and she’d never treated them like marks, either, but this feels somehow different. This time, it has nothing to do with distractions or burning off energy or lies; this time, she wants to know she has permission; and that in itself makes this that much more real. Real, and terrifying, and completely, utterly fantastic.

Any concerns she might have had vanish like smoke in the wind when Maria’s hands circle her waist and pull her close. The other woman is smiling as she answers, “Excellent, actually.”

 

**viii. carry all that mournful beauty to the scented oaken press**

_28 November 2015_ ; _Manhattan, New York_

Their second Thanksgiving as a team passes with beatific ease.

The actual day of, some mad scientist cooking up radioactive, rabid bulls (and where the hell do they conjure up this shit, anyway?) does his level best to abscond with all their their thanks. Instead, they take him into custody, round up his concoctions, and settle in two days later for a belated holiday with food in sufficient quantities to sustain a couple platoons. Or a couple supersoldiers and a demigod; po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh. Long after the sun has set and they’re all on the verge of a collective food coma, they’ve retreated to the living room to marathon the _X-Files_. After all they’ve seen, the premise is strangely and terrifyingly a lot less implausible, but they’re mercifully too well fed to spare it much thought.

Somewhere in the middle of the second season, Tony meanders into the kitchen to replace everyone’s drinks. Pepper ambles in beside him, popping the tops off the beer bottles. It’s the first time since their break-up that she’s come to a team event with someone else as her formal plus-one, and Tony’s distantly surprised at how little that bothers him. (He’s moved on, too, and they’d unexpectedly settled right back into their old, pre-dating friendship within months of the split, but he’s never claimed to avoid double standards.) Neither is he all that shocked to find she’s with Happy: the man had driven Tony around for years and run his security, after all, and he’s essentially been Pepper’s bodyguard ever since she became CEO. He’s neither blind nor stupid, and it’s not as though Tony can fault him for his taste.

“Have you given much thought to Christmas?” she asks, soft enough for his ears only as he hands her another bottle.

He blinks at her, befuddled. “You didn’t get enough to eat tonight, so you’re already planning a month out?” he asks blankly.

She rolls his eyes at his prevaricating, but the accompanying smile is affectionately amused. “No, but I _was_ thinking that, since everyone’s not just _here_ for a family holiday because all their plans were canceled, it’s probably not unreasonable to assume they’ll be spending the winter holidays here again, too.”

Now he’s progressed to side-eyeing her warily. “Okay,” he concedes, “probably.”

“Well, you still own the mansion, technically,” she points out, carefully circumspect and altogether too rational.

Like always, his instinctive gut reaction is to shrug it off, say it’s not germane to the conversation and change the subject. Except she’s right: he does still own the property, and unlike the plot of land in Malibu that still lies fallow, this one remains complete with the estate and is actually habitable. So he holds his tongue, obdurately refusing to break first, purely on principle.

Her expression is knowing, but she doesn’t call him on it. “It could be a nice retreat for the team,” she suggests, offhand like it’s a thought that’s only just occurred to her. But if she knows him better than he knows himself (which she does), he knows her almost as well, even if he doesn’t utilize said knowledge nearly as often. “It’s between here and the Academy, which makes it convenient, and it’s secure enough for you to keep backups on hand for everything you might need in an emergency. But since you all basically live where you work, you could have an actual holiday or something.”

She’s deliberately hedging around the topic and he knows it, so he sighs and bites the bullet. “You want to talk about renovating it again.”

It’s not a question, but she nods all the same. Then she pauses, equivocation writ large across her face. When she speaks, her voice is even more compassionate than before. “A lot of them—” She tips her head in the direction of the sofas, where no one has moved, though it’s a sure bet that the enhanced hearing means at least half of them can hear this entire conversation. “—don’t have the best experiences with the holidays, if they have them at all, and maybe now’s their chance to change that.”

What she just as clearly doesn’t say is, “And maybe you can build your own, because you won’t be alone.” For that tact he’s more appreciative than he knows how to voice, not least because he hasn’t the faintest idea how to do so without implying that her presence when they’d been together had been somehow insufficient. It hadn’t been, not by a long shot, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t irrefutably different, especially pre-Killian and pre-Extremis. She’s his family and he loves her, and both those facts are indelible truths in his life, but he’s come to understand that this team has all found family in one another, himself included. They have the dubious benefit of shared experience, the kind he’s grateful Pepper has only had to personally contend with once, which means they can all get by without explanations in a way he never could with Pepper, or even Rhodey. The Rhodes had all but adopted him back when they were both at MIT, but there had still been a sense of that same alienation: he adores them, and the unconditional warmth they’d offered him had probably kept him sane and alive long enough to graduate, but they don’t understand his life, and Rhodey doesn’t understand what it’s like to _not_ have that kind of all-encompassing love. He’s grateful for that, for their sakes, but it too often renders otherwise benign conversation into something inadvertently awkward.

Still, he hesitates. The mansion is rife with memory, most of it either neutral or unpleasant; and yet, despite the thousand occasions on which he’d resolutely decided to sell the whole thing, he still holds the deeds. He figures he can take a hint. Especially from his own subconscious.

Keeping his gaze focused on the drinks, he replies at last, “Why don’t we head up there in a couple days, and we can figure out what’s salvageable and what to rebuild.” He chances a glance up, and the warm approval in her eyes is encouraging, so he ventures a smile. “You can break out that color-coordinated binder you’ve been putting together since you first got hired—don’t even try denying it, I know it’s there.”

Chuckling softly, she bumps his shoulder with hers. “Done,” she agrees, then picks up a handful of bottles while he gets the rest.

\----------

 _1 December 2015_ ; _Stark Mansion, Brooklyn, New York_

He’d never admit it, but he’d been half-hoping for some sort of international crisis to arise and demand the Avengers’ presence. But because the universe is a contrary thing, of course _now_ is the time it chooses to be utterly implacable, so true to Tony’s word, Happy drives him and Pepper out to the mansion three days after their belated Thanksgiving. At best, he’s expecting a sort of stilted, cumbersome silence, but instead it feels like it always had, slotting around him like a space that had simply been waiting for him to fill it again.

Carol and Rhodey have been recalled to DC on Air Force business for a few days, but the rest of the team is up at the Academy at least for the duration of the day, if not several, so he and Pepper have some time to rectify what amounts to decades of neglect. He can’t shake the sensation that it’s disingenuous to be here, leaving the team to work—or not so much as _telling_ Steve, never mind bringing him with. Except Tony doesn’t know how he’d even begin to explain all of the history embedded into the very foundations of this place, even to someone like Steve who had actually _known_ Howard. Pepper already knows all the stories, and whatever Happy doesn’t know he also knows not to ask about; it blessedly confines the questions to the decor and what he wants to keep or dispose of, and his opinion on _x_ or _y_ alteration. It’s a distraction that keeps him from sinking too deeply into his own head (there’s a reason why he’s only been here once since his parents died) without requiring him to dredge up more history than he’s entirely comfortable with.

The furniture is buried under a wealth of covers and sheets, dust motes wafting in the sunlight filtering through the windows. The air inside the mansion is musty and cold, and they leave footprints in the dust that’s accumulated on the floor over the years, but Tony isn’t struck by that sense of yawning emptiness he’d been bracing for. So they throw the windows open to get some air circulating, and Tony pauses for a moment in one of the sitting rooms when he sees an old photo of him with Edwin Jarvis on the fireplace mantle.

“You’re getting soft in your old age,” Pepper teases lightly, coming to stand beside him.

Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, he only smiles and says, “Maybe.”

He feels more than sees Pepper’s close scrutiny, but he doesn’t close off his expression the way he’s wont to do, letting her look. Finally, Pepper just rests her hand on his shoulder and squeezes, briefly. It’s encouraging. It’s loving. It’s Pepper being there for him the way she always has, even when he hadn’t noticed, and he thinks, _I’m so glad I didn’t lose you. I’m so glad that you’re still here_. He stops himself from actually saying it aloud, prodding himself back into motion as they make their way down one of the hallways.

“Workshop on the premises?” she asks as they walk, picking up like nothing had happened. “I know you’ll just end up taking apart the kitchen in you don’t have one.”

In spite of himself—in spite of everything—he laughs, because denial would be futile. “There’s that guesthouse portion they added on at some point,” he replies. “We could keep that and overhaul it into a multipurpose workspace, and that way it’s here without actually being in the house.”

“I like it,” she says with a smile.

That seems to regulate the tone for the majority of the day as they move from room to room, removing dust covers from furniture and mentally stripping the rooms down to plaster and cement. Broadly speaking, the place is stately rather than opulent, built with a brand of elegance intended to withstand the proverbial ages; the hardwood floors are in remarkably good shape, and the high, vaulted ceilings and open archways make the already expansive building look even larger (he’s about ninety-five percent certain this isn’t just the _Downton Abbey_ kick they were on last month talking, either). But the heavy rugs on the floors are outdated, as is the wood-paneling-and-wallpaper combination on the walls. If nothing else, merely painting the walls white would eliminate that odd sense of being stuck in Dracula’s mansion (seriously, that guy is altogether too mired in perpetuating vampire stereotypes—Tony blames _Twilight_ ).

The furniture makeup consists predominantly of high-quality antiques, but even if it hadn’t stirred up memories of being herded out of rooms or paraded into them like a show pony, Tony figures it deserves the appreciation of someone who knows antiques the way he does vintage cars. So with the exception of a very few select pieces, he just shrugs and says, “Donate it.” Pepper cautiously suggests auctioning it off instead, and after a moment of consideration he agrees. A third of the proceeds will go to the Maria Stark Foundation, another third to Médecins sans Frontières, and the remaining third to a cause of Pepper’s choice; again, there’s that flash of warmth, akin to pride, and he feels it envelop him like an implicit embrace.

His parents’ bedroom is discomfiting at first, but it’s easy enough to designate its contents to the auction and set it up as another guest room. The remainder of the bedrooms are primarily inconsequential, his own childhood room included—the Captain America poster on the wall inspires as much nostalgia as mortification now that he’s literally sleeping with the man, and he thinks perhaps it wasn’t such a terrible oversight to not have Steve here to see it.

Then they come to Howard’s study.

Despite every silent, vehement oath he had sworn to himself that he would _not_ be defeated by a goddamn door, Tony freezes the moment his fingers touch the polished brass knob, the metal as impersonal and cold beneath his touch as the room itself had been when Howard was alive. The memories he’s been fighting to hold at bay, as close to dormant as they ever are, finally win out, clawing their way up like they’re trying to tear through the heavy dust covers draped over almost everything in the house. It isn’t as though he ever manages to be rid of them, but this time they latch back onto his brain, tenacious and draining as leeches. He remembers falling asleep with his back pressed against the oak, drifting off to the fading hope that perhaps Howard might finally deem his own son worthy of his presence. It had never been a door so much as a shield, an impenetrable wall dividing the gaping chasm that lay between his world and that of his father.

He blinks, and it’s 2015 again, and his hand is still on the doorknob. But he isn’t five years old anymore, and there _is_ no Howard to prove himself to; so he draws in a deep breath, thinks of Steve and his steadfast faith in Tony’s worth, and twists his hand.

This time, it’s just a door. This time, the knob turns in his grip, the heavy oak panel swinging away from him with no more strenuous a protest than the faint creak of old, unused hinges. This time, though the room is still strewn with shadows and that sense of mysterious unknown, the untouchable, almost sanctified quality it had held in Tony’s mind as a child is distinctly absent.

Cocking his head at the interior, Tony says mostly to himself, “Huh.”

Beside him, Pepper is so still he thinks she’s stopped breathing altogether, and he turns to look at her, offering her a smile. However tremulous it might be, he can _see_ the braced anticipation drain from the lines of her body as she finally looks away from him into the room proper, eyes scanning the objects rapidly as she catalogs the contents. The dispassionate assessment in her expression is exactly what he needs to extricate himself from the mire of his own memories, exactly what he needs to stop thinking of this as “Howard’s study” and instead let it become nothing more significant than another room, another assignment.

“We can get any documents and files packed and moved to the Tower to be sorted later, in case there’s any sensitive material we’d want to keep,” Pepper says, almost clinically disinterested. “The furniture’s as good as anything else in this house—we can add it to the auction list.” The cadence of her words, the lilt to the end of the sentence, is the barest implication of a question; he takes it on faith that if he says nothing, she’ll take it for the consent it is.

Catching the way her gaze settles on the print that’s been pushed behind a stack of books, he says instead, “You can keep the Mapplethorpe. It’d look nice in your bedroom.” When she only grins at him a trifle sheepishly instead of outright protesting, he knows he got that one right. “Don’t say I never get you anything pretty,” he adds, deliberately cheeky, and she rolls her eyes, knocking her shoulder against his. It’s soothing, grounding, a tangible reminder that he’s out from under the weight of Howard’s suffocating presence; that it’s no more than an unkempt, abandoned room; and that he’s in safe company.

Slowly, he makes his way around the room, tracing a finger over the edge of the imposing mahogany desk and leaving a line in the decade-old layer of grey dust. A handful of books on the shelves catch his interest; he makes a mental note to tell Pepper to set them aside. Howard’s fountain pen lies abandoned, where he’d left it atop a stack of papers. Tony picks it up, twirling it between his fingers. Maria had bought it for their tenth anniversary, and it is perhaps the only object of sentimental value that Howard had ever bothered to keep. A moment of waffling, and then Tony pockets it, grateful when Pepper doesn’t comment.

The office is as impersonal as Tony remembers, but while there are no photos on the desk, there are a few frames suspended on the wall opposite. Random, black-and-white portraits of Howard with various generals and Presidents, most of whom are likely long dead; Howard and Stane, both of them young and carefree (Tony wonders for a brief moment what the hell catastrophe had befallen them between now and then to transform them into the men they’d become, then pushes the useless thought aside); Tony, age five, at his birthday party, both his parents smiling over his shoulders; Howard and Maria on their wedding day, with her resplendent in white satin and absolutely radiant.

“You look like her, when you smile,” Pepper says.

Tony’s silent at first, eyes on the photo and his mother’s happiness, open and brilliant in the lines around her eyes and mouth. He remembers how she’d never lost the capacity for that beauty—even in the later years, when it had seemed she’d lost the ability to feel joy at all and had instead shielded herself beneath false smiles and social excuses, she’d still had those radiant smiles for her son.

So he says aloud, “Yeah.” It’s woefully insufficient, but he can hardly give voice to the rest of his thoughts. Even to Pepper, he doesn’t know how to say that he misses his mother more than having functioning lungs, how he can still perfectly recall the freesias of her perfume, how she kept Tony from self-destructing even when he thought himself useless. The papers, the public, the biographies all focus on the great Howard Stark and how he revolutionized technology, but none of them address how Maria was the force that kept both their worlds turning, the way they fractured without her.

“She would have liked you,” he adds, tearing his eyes away from the photo. “You had a lot in common. She was indestructible.”

Pepper says nothing, her expression soft around the edges when Tony turns to look at her. But it’s absent of pity, and Tony finds himself glad of her presence.

“Is that Steve?” she asks, blatantly changing the subject and gesturing to one of the frames.

The photo looks like it had been taken during the war, a moment of respite amidst the storm: Steve looks startlingly carefree, something rare enough in those days, surrounded by the Commandos with all eyes on Dugan as he gesticulates wildly. Bucky’s also in the frame, standing at Steve’s left, hair cut regulation-short and face young, so much younger than Tony’s ever seen. They all do, if he looks closely, and he can’t help wonder if that was the reason Howard had chosen this particular photo.

“It’s a good photo,” she offers, probably thinking along the same lines, and Tony nods.

“It is.” He takes another long look at Steve’s face, then turns his back on the wall of memories, making a mental note to come back for that photo. Steve would appreciate it, he thinks. “I trust you to work your magic here, Potts.”

“Have you ever known me to do anything but?” Pepper asks with a smirk, and the moment passes.

Nodding again, attempting to convey his gratitude with that gesture alone, Tony walks out without a second glance. Back in the hallway, he draws in a deep breath, feeling he can finally close that particular door to his past. It’s not quite closure, but it’s a near enough neighbor.

“Kitchen?” Pepper says, transitioning back to planning mode, and Tony follows without comment.

The remainder of the mansion is easier to contend with, and he consents wholeheartedly to all her design proposals. It isn’t as though he has much to add with her one step ahead as she always is, so for once he serves as _her_ sounding board.

They reach the Jarvis’ apartment last.

Of all the rooms in the house, theirs have the most lived-in quality. The furniture is classic and elegant, but it lacks the sumptuousness of the rest of the property. The walls have an understated, pastel wallpaper in place of wood paneling, still charming and inviting with the layers of dust. It’s nothing huge, just a living room, bedroom and master bath, and a small, private kitchen, but there’s more kept between those walls than in the mansion as a whole.

“I love this,” Pepper says as she moves through the rooms.

Tony laughs, picking up a stray teacup that had been left on the coffee table. “Ana had very strong feelings on how her home should look, and both Howard and Jarvis knew better than to get in her way,” he replies, turning the cup over in his hands. It’s faded with age, but he recognizes it as part of Jarvis’ favorite set, white porcelain painted with thistle-blue turtledoves.

“You never talk about them,” she says, more idle curiosity than accusation.

Tony knows full well he could dismiss it and she’d leave it at that. Perhaps that’s why he says instead, “You know about Jarvis,” and places the teacup back in its saucer. “Ana was…a firecracker of a woman. Stubborn, smart, sarcastic, looked like his exact opposite, but they were the happiest couple I’ve ever met.” He smiles, an expression laced with sadness. “They couldn’t have children of their own, something I didn’t find out for years, so with Howard and my mom gone as often as they were, the Jarvis’ basically raised me as their own. He taught me to properly sit at table, and she taught me how to pick locks.”

Pepper laughs, startled, and Tony doesn’t bother to suppress his own huff of laughter. “They sound like wonderful people,” she says.

He smiles. “They were.”

\----------

_7 April 1976_

With one final twitch of the pick, the tumblers fall into place and the lock clicks open in Tony’s hand. He beams up at Ana proudly, and she claps her hands with genuine enthusiasm.

“Are you certain that is an age-appropriate activity, Mrs. Jarvis?” her husband asks, glancing over at them from where he’s ironing a shirt. The steam has already turned his face red, a stray curl loose over his forehead, which a nearly-five-year-old Tony finds hilarious in contrast with his typical British poise.

Waving dismissively, Ana pats Tony’s hand reassuringly. “I learned to do it at his age.”

Jarvis levels a long look at her, clearly aiming for disapproving, though it emerges more fond than anything else. If her smirk is any indication, Ana notices, too, but she blithely ignores her husband and nudges a plate of cookies closer to Tony.

“What if he accidentally gets locked in a room?” she continues. “It’s a valuable skill to have.” Jarvis simply huffs and says nothing further; Ana gives Tony a conspiratorial wink. “Cookie, come now.”

Carefully, Tony selects one from the proffered plate. “Dad says there will be food at the party later and that I’m not allowed to spoil my appetite.”

“Nonsense,” Ana says briskly. “Everyone knows cookies don’t spoil an appetite, they just make it better. And besides, I’ve seen what the catering company has prepared for tonight, and trust me, better a cookie in your belly than that.”

“I must agree, Master Tony,” Jarvis interjects, lips curled in a moue of distaste. “Why anyone would include jello in anything is beyond me.”

Ana pulls a face, making Tony laugh delightedly, and he finishes his cookie in silence. It’s one of the ones Jarvis makes solely for him, chocolate and peanut butter, chunky and melting in his mouth. He chews the last of it thoughtfully, not regretting any of it.

“Do I have to go tonight?” he asks at last. “Can’t I stay here with you?”

Jarvis looks up from his examination of the shirt, but it’s Ana who answers. “It’s your father’s annual company party, so you have to be there,” she says with a _tsk_ -ing sound. “The men in this family respect their responsibilities.”

Tony turns a pleading look on Jarvis for help, but the butler shakes his head. “Listen to Mrs. Jarvis.”

Tony deflates like a balloon. He knows full well they’re right, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. His father’s parties are always too loud, too _big_ , and he always feels like a ship adrift in a storm. He’s always fitted into suits he can’t breathe in, surrounded by people who smile at him but never mean it, and all he’s ever been allowed to do is smile back like he cares. He feels like a show pony at these parties, with people telling him about his heritage and his legacy and assessing him like they’re trying to determine his purchase price. He hates it, and the thought alone is enough to have his stomach twisting in anxiety.

“Just as it is your responsibility to attend this party, so is it mine to make sure the after-party is ready, and I cannot work if I’m distracted by the likes of the two of you,” Ana adds seriously, and it takes a moment for her words to register.

“After-party?” he asks hesitantly.

Lips twitching like she’s hiding a smile, she nods. “Of course—cookies and _The Hobbit_. You aren’t going to let me read the book alone, are you?”

Tony smiles so broadly his face hurts from it, and he couldn’t care less. “No, you can’t finish it without me!”

“Good,” she says decisively, rising to her feet and retrieving the plate, the empty teacups, the lock, and the picks. “Now shoo, and let me prepare.”

Tony’s off the chair so quickly he nearly trips on his own feet, stopping only when he hears Jarvis call his name. When he turns back, Jarvis is holding up the white shirt from the ironing board, eyebrows raised pointedly, and Tony sighs but runs back to take it.

“I will be up soon to help you get dressed,” he says, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“I’m not a _baby_ anymore, I can dress myself,” he says, chin up in a mirror image of Howard trying to make a point. In lieu of reply, Jarvis simply clears his throat and taps his forefinger against his perfectly tied bowtie—the one with red polkadots that Tony had helped pick out. After another moment of hesitation, Tony says, with all the magnanimity of his years, “Fine, you can help with that.”

He’s nearly out the front door, shirt held carefully in his hands so he doesn’t ruin Jarvis’ work, when he glances back. He sees Jarvis rest a hand against Ana’s hip as she passes, sees her stop to face him as Jarvis smiles, easy and fleeting. “Thank you,” he says, so softly that Tony nearly misses it, and Ana smiles back warmly, leaning in to kiss him.

Tony knows enough about adults to recognize that as his cue to leave.

As predicted, the party is atrociously boring, but as soon as he’s excused, he leaves the adults to whatever it is they do when they send children to bed and makes his way back to the Jarvis’ apartment. He falls asleep sandwiched comfortably between them, head in Ana’s lap as Jarvis patiently darns an old sock on Tony’s other side. His belly is full of cookies, the living room smells like Earl Grey, and Ana’s voice is soothingly even as she reads to him of Bilbo’s escape from Smaug’s clutches.

\----------

“I was thinking we could keep this as guest accommodations, space for anyone who’s not on the team,” Pepper suggests, pulling Tony back to the present.

He’s nodding before he’s fully processed the words, but his agreement is no less wholehearted for it. He can’t imagine the suite as anything less than a home, and he’s relieved to not have to fight Pepper on it. “Keep the couch,” he adds.

She doesn’t so much as blink, replying, “Yes, I think it’d look perfect with some new upholstery,” and Tony could kiss her there and then if they weren’t both happily taken. “The rest can be added to the auction, and I’ll make sure these funds are allocated to the Foundation.”

“Thanks, Pep,” he says. He’s beginning to feel like a broken record, but it’s that or choke on the attempt to vocalize what he’s feeling.

By the soft look in her eyes, she gets it anyway; she always does. Even when he was completely blind, she’d always seen well enough for them both.

Once they’re back outside, the heavy oak doors locked behind them, he finds himself breathing easier. A sensation he can’t quite define hums beneath his skin, rising from his chest and threatening to spill over. He feels lighter for it, willing to drown in it and certain for the first time he’ll reemerge from the water. Discussing thoughts and feelings and emotions might still be anathema to him, but he isn’t the same Tony Stark who walked away from this house and left everything behind, locked inside in the hopes he’d never see it again. It’s the most balanced he’s felt in years, even if he doesn’t feel perfectly steady, and while they’ve work left to do—the grounds need attention, and the balconies and back patio have seen enough weather to need renovation—but it’s progress.

“This was good,” Pepper says simply, standing beside him.

“Yeah.” Tony breathes out slowly, the taste of dust and memories still on his lips. “It was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this chapter, this story is complete with regard to plot! The conclusion is quite literally a long epilogue of nothing but fluff, in compensation for the angst of the preceding hundred-some-thousand words; there is almost nothing there that deliberately furthers the plot. This update will be slower, though within reason, so consider this a heads-up.
> 
> Jemaah Islamiyah is an active terrorist group operating in the South Asian region. It was chosen because it fit the timeline, this particular plotline, and the region at large, but the event detailed in section 7 deliberately deviates from the group’s real-life methodology. No disrespect is intended to any of their victims.
> 
> The Chechen _shahidka_ are also real, though there is nothing in either MCU or 616 canon to suggest that they are the source of Natasha’s codename. Based on what little is known of them, it is also highly unlikely that any intelligence agency would choose to infiltrate them in the manner described.
> 
> According to Richard K Morgan’s _Black Widow: Homecoming_ , Nat’s original Widow’s Bite was indeed four kilos per wrist. And while the MCU has not officially met Dracula yet, we couldn’t resist.
> 
> Chapter title from Adele’s “All I Ask”. Section titles from Mumford & Sons’ “Babel”; WB Yeats’ “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time”; WB Yeats’ “The Song of the Happy Shepherd”; WB Yeats’ “Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea”; Adele’s “Skyfall”; WB Yeats’ “Anashuya and Vijaya”; WB Yeats’ “The Song of the Happy Shepherd”; and WB Yeats’ “The Countess Cathleen in Paradise”.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea was conceived back in July 2015, and it’s (obviously) grown exponentially since then. The only thing actively written (which is to say, not simply revised and proofread) after the release of _CACW_ is the conclusion; everything else was sketched out or fully drafted long before the trailers even dropped. So when we say “accidentally wrote half of _CACW_ ”? We really mean “accidentally wrote half of _CACW_ ”. It’s a little creepy. We deliberately did not change our plot to match _CACW_ once we had seen the film, so sometime after _Age of Ultron_ , it’s a blend of MCU and our attempt to extrapolate from 616 based on what the films had already done. Similarities to _CACW_ are coincidental, but there are also clear plot deviations.
> 
> Additionally, we ended up retaining both JARVIS and Vision, for no other reason than artistic licence. We tried to write in FRIDAY instead, we really did. Obviously, it didn't work very well.
> 
> This fic is technically finished: it is six chapters long, updated once every two weeks. We are, however, sort of breaking our mutual “don’t post anything that isn’t complete” rule, mostly since the only piece that still needs polishing and editing is the last chapter, and that has more to do with fluff to recover from the angst than it does with plot development.
> 
> Fic title from Florence + the Machine’s “Various Storms and Saints”.
> 
>    
> And finally, if you would like to find us and yell at and/or geek out with us, you can find CinnamonCake on twitter as @CinnCakes, and on [tumblr](http://omgcinnamoncakes.tumblr.com); and last_illusions at @lastillusions, and on [tumblr](http://injuredeternityao3.tumblr.com/)


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